Many of the students appreciate Mark McKinney, a beloved history teacher at YCHS. He was given an award from Oregon Daughters of the American Revolution. He was awarded their Outstanding Teacher of American History award. Cindy Schubert, the interim principal of YCHS, was behind Mark McKinney getting the DAR award.

Schubert had asked Tracie Looney, one of the Physical education teachers at YCHS, to send a letter DAR nominating McKinney for the accolade. Looney stated that she was honored to send in a letter for him and she believes that he is absolutely deserving of it.

Looney has been working with McKinney for 25 years. She says that The Daughters of the Revolution exemplifies what a good person is and that McKinney is a great person.

McKinney was humbled to receive this honor, and he was not expecting it at all. This was McKinney’s first statewide teacher achievement. He did not see it in his future becoming a teacher stating, “No, Actually my father won a state award as a teacher but I never thought myself, I didn’t know this was a award. The local DAR chapter had to nominate me, I didn’t know they did it.”

Teaching has always been in McKinney family, His middle son is a fifth-generation teacher. When he started college teaching was not his first choice of a career but he states he knew in the back of his mind he knew he would end up teaching but decided it for a couple of years.

McKinney has been teaching at YCHS for more than 20 years. McKinney stated why he has been here so long saying, “First of all the quality of the staff, even though there has been a lot of different faces in our career but the quality of teachers here its people work together great, the quality of students has been fun. I kinda like the small community, just kinda came here and kinda fell in love with it.”

McKinney plans to travel after he retires. He wants to travel across the U.S.A, visiting every state in America.