David Hill, middle, was the recipient of the Missouri National Education Association (NEA) Board of Directors Horace Mann “Friend of Education” award in the Journalism-Television category.

Each year the Missouri NEA Board of Directors selects winners for the Horace Mann “Friend of Education” awards. The competition for the award is strong as there are many excellent individuals and organizations in Missouri working for the betterment of public education. David Hill, Account Executive for KCTV5 in Kansas City, was the recipient of the award in the Journalism-Television category. He received the award April 21, 2018, at the Tan-Tar-A Resort in Lake of the Ozarks.
Missouri NEA is in its third year of co-sponsoring Read to Achieve with KCTV5 and Kansas NEA. Hill was raised in northwest Missouri and graduated from Tarkio High School in 1984.  Hill and KCTV5 have an interest in featuring positive news about public education. He had participated in a successful teacher recognition program while working for KAKE-TV in Wichita, Kansas. His experience in Wichita helped shape the program and his goal was to develop a similar promotion in the Kansas City market when he joined KCTV/KSMO in July 2014. Read to Achieve is promoted on TV via commercials that encourage students or parents to nominate a teacher who stresses reading as essential to student success. Winners are selected monthly from the nominations submitted on KCTV5’s website. KCTV5 produces the TV and web ads, provides a morning news anchor to read to the students, and features the winning teacher in his or her classroom during the 4 p.m. news the day of the classroom award. The winning teacher is presented a $1,000 check by MNEA president Charles E. Smith. The Kansas NEA does the same. The program has been so successful that plans are in the works to expand to other areas in the state of Missouri. Hill and KCTV5 are responsible for offering to partner with Missouri NEA to recognize the good work of public educators.