EXETER — When Exeter High School ninth-grade science teacher Mark Kinton won WERZ's Teacher of the Year Award, he got many e-mails, letters and messages of congratulations.

EXETER — When Exeter High School ninth-grade science teacher Mark Kinton won WERZ's Teacher of the Year Award, he got many e-mails, letters and messages of congratulations.



One student wrote him a letter and sent him a personal essay she wrote during her college freshman English class. The assignment was to write about a favorite teacher. In the essay, she described her first day in Mark Kinton's physical science class.



"Congratulations!" he yelled as he jumped on the desk. "You were the fastest sperm to reach the egg!" He said that he would expect nothing but great things from that class.



The essay described how Kinton was not only an excellent academic teacher, but a teacher who went out of his way to help his students grow both inside and outside the classroom.



For Kinton is not only a teacher at EHS, but also the senior class adviser. All year every year he works with the class officers to plan senior trips, fund-raisers, senior week and the overnight lock-ins that occur after prom and graduation.



"It's something where in a day and age when everyone's so busy, it's good to get to know the kids in a different way, on a different level. I get to work with some top-notch kids from each class," said Kinton.



His involvement as the senior class adviser reveals only a small piece on the type of person Kinton is, as does his work outside the school. He has also been employed for nine years at the Hampton Police Department. He works there primarily during the weekends and in the summer.



Kinton said that he didn't always know that he wanted to be a teacher. He got an undergraduate engineering degree at the University of Lowell, but later decided that he wasn't happy. When he looked back on the jobs he enjoyed most after college, he realized that it was a substitute job he held shortly after college. So he went to get his degree in education. He has been teaching for 24 years since, 19 of which have been at Exeter High School.



As if working as a teacher, class adviser and police officer weren't enough, Kinton also got a master's degree in administration and supervision with the idea that he might move up to the administration side of education.



But he's unsure whether he'd miss teaching too much.



"I have faith that I could do it, but I don't know how much I would miss the classroom." But if the opportunity presented itself, he would try moving up, he said.



But Kinton continues to be so involved primarily because he loves his job so much. As the old saying goes, if you like your job, you never work a day in your life, said Kinton. What is it about teaching that keeps him getting up every day? "It's the kids," he said. "Teaching goes beyond the content in the book. It's the interaction between the kids not only on an academic level, but also on a personal level."



Kinton doesn't know exactly who nominated him for the radio contest; he found out when he got a congratulatory e-mail from the principal.



"I'm flattered," he said. There were 53 nominations, said Kinton. "It gives me a nice feeling that I was able to 'bubble up' from not only the final 54 who were nominated, but also from the thousands of teachers in New Hampshire.



"I'm not going to be a millionaire, but it pays the bills. I took a $30,000 pay cut when I moved jobs, but you know, there are many people who have the money but aren't happy." And that is something you can't put a price on, said Kinton.



He currently lives in York, Maine, and has a wife and two children.