State Representative, Former ISD Educator Honored with 2016 Friend of Education Award

Rep. Ira Anders, a long-time educator in the Independence School District and champion of educational issues in Jefferson City, received a 2016 Friend of Education Award from the Missouri Association of School Administrators (MASA). Anders was honored during MASA’s annual spring conference at the Lake of the Ozarks.

Before becoming a member of the Missouri House in 2010, Anders helped shape the ISD- inside and outside the classroom- for four decades. He was an elementary school teacher for 28 years, then worked six years as a computer technician. Anders won his first election in Independence, claiming a seat on the ISD Board of Education where he spent six years as a board member before turning his attention to statewide educational concerns.

Born and raised in a small Kansas farm town, Anders’ political juices began flowing when he arrived in Missouri. He remembered what a Truman High School teacher once told him…. “a teacher that says they are not interested in politics is like a drowning person who says they are not interested in water.” The rest is history, which coincidentally, is another passion of his. Anders is active in the Missouri and Jackson County Historical Society and the Truman Library Institute.

Linda Gray Smith, the ISD’s assistant superintendent of human resources, was also honored at the banquet, receiving MASA’s Honorary Life Member Award.