Submitted Photo Former Minot educator Rich Feldner receives the 2025 North Dakota Geographic Alliance Friend of Geography award from Jeff Beck, NDGA coordinator.

The North Dakota Geographic Alliance announced the 2025 winner of its Friend of Geography Award is former Minot educator Rich Feldner.

The NDGA is a statewide partnership established in 1991 between university based learning and K-12 classrooms which provides teachers with resources necessary for more effective geographic learning.

The NDGA lauded Feldner in a news release as a frequent presenter at the organization’s teacher training, saying he has been willing to share his vast resources and knowledge with its workshop participants.

Feldner graduated from Minot State University in 1978, after which he began a nearly 40-year- long teaching career as a high school science teacher at both Minot High School’s Central and Magic City campuses. Feldner received his master of arts in teaching-science degree in 1993. He became a field trip coordinator for the NDGA in 1998 and became a team leadership coordinator in 2005 which he has continued even after his retirement in 2018.

Feldner has been very active in the Minot community, serving on the MSU Beaver Boosters; serving in leadership positions for the Magic City Youth Baseball program, the Moose Lodge, the Minot chapter of the Golden K and the Minot Public Schools Foundation. He and his wife, Rochelle, are both former MPS educators. They have one son, Casey, who is also a middle school teacher in Brighton, Colorado.