Two longtime Kingfisher Public Schools teachers — including the most recent recipient of the district’s teacher of the year honor — had their resignations accepted last Monday by the Kingfisher Board of Education.

Diane Grellner, who was named districtwide teacher of the year last month, and Kristi Hyatt will be retiring at the end of this school year.

Their resignations along with that of special education paraprofessional Jarrett Looper were approved unanimously by the board during its regular March meeting.

Grellner has been at KPS for 16 years of her 40 years in the profession.

She currently teaches third grade at Heritage School.

“I have been blessed to be able to teach for 40 years. It has been a true pleasure teaching for the past 16 years in Kingfisher,” Grellner said in her resignation letter. “Despite my love of this profession, I am ready to leave it to spend more time with my husband, children and grandchildren. Kingfisher Public Schools is an outstanding school system. I’m excited several of my grandchildren will be attending school here.”

Hyatt also currently teaches third graders at Heritage.

Of her 31 years teaching, 19 have been spent at KPS.

“It has been a pleasure serving as an educator the last 19 years at KPS. Spending my days with second and third graders has been such a joy and fun-filled time for me,” she said in her letter.

“I appreciate the support from the administration, board, my fellow teachers, parents and the Kingfisher community. I am looking forward to spending more time with my family in retirement. As always, it’s a great day to be a Yellowjacket.”

Hyatt told the Times & Free Press that Grellner was assigned as her mentor teacher 31 years ago when they both taught at Piedmont.

“It’s kind of fitting that we’re going out together,” she said.

Brittany Phillips was approved by the board to serve as a special education paraprofessional and Matt Peck was brought on as an assistant baseball coach.

Gerrett Spears will also assist the baseball program after serving as a slowpitch softball assistant last season. Spears is also the district’s high school girls head basketball coach.

One of his basketball assistants, Jennifer Pralle, will now be a slowpitch softball assistant.

All of the personnel moves were approved after a 30-minute executive session by the board and Superintendent Jason Sternberger.

An expansion of the district’s FFA livestock barn could be on the horizon.

Board members voted to approve hiring LWPB Architecture to design the expansion.

Although the expansion isn’t massive in scope, Sternberger told board members that any structure that any students will occupy at any time must go through an architectural design phase.

The expansion will be on the north end of the current structure, which sits west of the high school and north of the high school softball field.

The district has worked with LWPB on numerous projects, including the seventh and eighth grade center currently under construction.

LWPB’s fee will be 6 percent of the overall budget of the project. The district must also cover survey and civil engineering costs, which total just over $12,000.

Transportation Director Keith Campbell will continue to gather information for board members as the district looks to install diesel and fuel tanks at its bus lot.

Campbell, also the middle school principal, first addressed the board at the February meeting and came back Monday with additional information they requested.

Among that information was the cost and regulations involved in installing a 2,100-gallon tank as opposed to a much larger one.

Campbell said his conversations with officials from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission led him to firmly believe the 2,100-gallon tank was the best option.

Three different proposals were provided to the board, but Campbell was asked to retrieve more information such as additives added to the diesel being used and the ability to lock into multi-month contracts on price.

Campbell said he’d collect the information and bring it before the board at a future meeting.