Students' Pet: Aggie Alumna Finishes Among 8 Finalists for 'America's Favorite Teacher'

Utah State University alumna Ryah Larsen Dowdy says the past several months have been a whirlwind, since she decided to compete for the title of “American’s Favorite Teacher 2026.”

Results of the national competition were announced June 5, and while the Logan High School math teacher wasn’t the winner, she made an impressive finish among the top eight finalists in a field of more than 160,000 candidates. The contest, in which the top awardee is determined by online public voting, is a fundraiser for The Planetary Society, one of the world’s largest nonprofit space organizations.

The 2026 competition raised $2.4 million to support The Planetary Society. The 2026 honoree is Ivy Miller, a 4th-grade teacher in Nashville, who was awarded a $25,000 prize, a school assembly starring Bill Nye The Science Guy, a trip to Hawaii and a feature story in Reader’s Digest.

“I learned about the competition on Instagram and thought it would be fun,” says Dowdy, who graduated from USU in 2023. “What I didn’t realize was the tremendous and heartwarming support I’d receive from students, family, friends and people I don’t even know. It’s a feeling I’ll never forget.”

The Lehi, Utah native’s journey to Utah State began when she was in 7th grade.

“I learned in a class that if you worked hard enough, you could go to college for free,” Dowdy says. “Right then and there I was determined to meet the challenge.”

The aspiring scholar’s parents and many extended family members had studied at USU, but Dowdy didn’t initially choose Utah State as her college destination.

“I didn’t want to go just because everyone else had,” says Dowdy, who graduated from Sky Ridge High School in 2017. “But as the time came, I couldn’t imagine going anywhere else. I felt at peace on the campus and as though I belonged.”

Meanwhile, Dowdy took and retook the ACT to get the highest score possible and make good on her promise to earn her way to college.

“I was offered a Presidential Scholarship to Utah State, which sealed the deal,” she says.

During her first year, Dowdy took a statistics class from Professor Kady Schneiter, who would become the undergrad’s most influential mentor.

“I loved Dr. Schneiter’s class and it was because of that experience I chose to make statistics part of my Composite Teaching, Mathematics and Statistics major,” Dowdy says. “She was an outstanding teacher and a true inspiration.”

While earning her bachelor’s degree, the industrious scholar created her own math tutoring business.

“My students ranged from a first grader to a fellow classmate in college calculus,” Dowdy says. “Tutoring paid my bills beyond what my full-tuition USU scholarship would cover. But the true benefit was learning how much I enjoyed teaching, and gaining valuable, hands-on experience. I developed my own tools and created my own lesson plans to help my students.”

Dowdy, who was named Teacher of the Year for the 2025-26 academic year, recently completed her third year of teaching full-time at Logan High, where she also coaches the cross-country team.

In addition to these professional responsibilities, she continues to tutor students.

“One-on-one tutoring is so important and many students need this extra instruction and mentorship to succeed in math,” she says.

Dowdy decided to compete in the America’s Favorite Teacher competition because she planned to use the prize money to start to a free tutoring center in Cache Valley.

“Yes, tutoring helped me pay my way through college, but the need is great and not everyone can afford the service,” she says.

Dowdy still plans to seek a way to establish a free tutoring center.

“I want to help fulfill that need,” Dowdy says. “What I’ve learned from this competition is the tremendous generosity of our community and how people genuinely want to support education. I look forward to finding a way to make the dream of a tutoring center come true.”