Hello! My name is Kate Baker, and I teach sophomore English and creative writing at Columbia High School in Nampa, ID. 

I was born in Austin, TX and grew up in Colorado Springs, CO (with a brief sojourn in Albuquerque). When I was fourteen my family moved to Boise, and I attended Meridian High School. In high school I dabbled in competitive speech/debate, but my main passion was band. (I played saxophone.)

After graduating from high school, I accepted a scholarship to attend Boise State University through their Honors College. I studied political science before focusing on English, where I earned degrees in both technical communication and creative writing.

Meanwhile, I was a proud member of the Blue Thunder Marching Band. My second and third years in Blue Thunder were big ones: I helped start a coed service fraternity for band members, became president of the band council, and met the man who would later become my husband. One great thing about the band was that it helped me see the country; I traveled with Blue Thunder and the fraternity to Hawaii, California, Arizona, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas, Oregon, Washington, and Utah.

Another great thing about the band and the fraternity was that it gave me the opportunity to work with a lot of young people as a leader and an educator. By the time I graduated from college (without a teaching endorsement, oops!) I was realizing that I deeply wanted to be a teacher.

I graduated from Boise State in May of 2004 and married my college band sweetheart, Ryan Baker, later that summer.

A year afterward, I went back to school to begin my MA and get certified. I took a few detours along the way, but in 2008 I earned my graduate certification to teach English. I was hired late that summer to teach seventh grade English and reading at Lowell Scott Middle School; I also advised the student council, ran elections and helped run pep assemblies, and started the school's National Novel Writing Month Young Writers' Program. It was an amazing year, and I loved every minute of it! Unfortunately, economic factors prevented the district from rehiring me for a second year. Although I was sad, I knew that "when one door closes, another one opens." Sure enough, soon thereafter I was hired at the beautiful Columbia High!

My husband and I live in Boise with Paisley (our dog), d'Artagnan (our cat), and sometimes Sophie (another, more free-spirited cat). That's a picture of Paisley meeting a Russian tortoise. 

Ryan and I are big Bronco fans, and we attend every football and basketball game we can. Both of us remain involved with the band as support staff; Ryan is the band's primary photographer, and I help with equipment on game days. It's not about just the game; we both firmly believe in the positive effect extracurricular involvement has on a person's life, and we like to support student activities whenever possible. 

I love reading interesting books, listening to energetic music, procrastinating work on my novel, and enjoying a "dollar" movie with caramel popcorn on a Tuesday evening. I miss the hot air balloon rallies; I used to crew for hot air balloons every year, and would like to do it again. I love camping, zipping around on the lake, sitting under trees, and trying to take beautiful photographs. And I love teaching! This is by far the most rewarding thing I can imagine to do with one's life, and I am thankful every day that I became a teacher.