photo by: Contributed by Jill Tomczyk

Jill Tomczyk stands in front of her desk in her fourth grade classroom.

In Ozark, Mo., fourth grade teacher Jill Tomczyk seems to have forgotten that she’s not in Kansas anymore.

Tomczyk, a 1991 University of Kansas graduate with an ardor for her alma mater, doesn’t miss any opportunity to show her crimson and blue colors in the Show Me State.

In her yearly introductory newsletter to parents, Tomczyk mentions her love of KU briefly, writing “Rock Chalk, Jayhawks!!” following her undergraduate credentials and later mentioning her hobby of “obsessing over KU basketball.”

But that is only an introduction, of course.

Tomczyk’s desk is decorated with a string of KU flags. A large Jayhawk magnet stands out against the black filing cabinet behind her desk, and above the students’ cubbies? A KU basketball and copy of the book “The Three Little Jayhawks,” a variation of “The Three Little Pigs” that portrays MU’s Truman the Tiger as the big, bad wolf.

“They know all about the Jayhawks in this classroom,” Tomczyk said.

Above student cubbies, Tomczyk has placed a KU basketball and a copy of “The Three Little Jayhawks.”

If a student sports the wrong team’s gear in Mrs. Tomczyk’s room, they’re in for a talking-to.

“What are you bringing that MU shirt into my classroom for?” she’ll question the rabble-rousers, jokingly adding, “Apparently you get an F today.”

It’s hard not to know about Tomczyk’s KU obsession, substitute teacher Edith Van Hoesen said.

“You know, red and blue looks so terrible on most people,” she joked. Van Hoesen attended the University of Missouri.

If Van Hoesen sees that Ozark West Elementary is in need of a sub for Tomczyk’s classroom, she always tries to fill the slot. And while she’s there, she does a bit of an extreme makeover: classroom edition.

Anything red or blue in the classroom is immediately covered in black or yellow — “It doesn’t matter the size of the paper that’s required.” She’ll scrawl “Go MU!” on every page of a yellow sticky note pad, marking her territory. Once, she even cut mini shirts out of construction paper, emblazoned them with expressions such as “Mizzou RAH” and placed them on a framed photo of Tomczyk’s two children. She used more construction paper to add word bubbles, which had Tomczyk’s son saying, “Finally! Missouri is a team I can be proud of!” and for Tomczyk’s daughter, “I love our new Mizzou gear!”

Van Hoesen feels the need to remind Tomczyk’s students of their state and state school.

“I just suggest she’s mistaken about what school she likes,” she said. “I’m not sure if she understands what state she lives in.”

Other coworkers get in on the drama too. Jared Lotz, who now works at Ozark Middle School but used to serve as assistant principal at Ozark West Elementary, once created a student-teacher Jeopardy skit for an assembly in which teachers were given character traits to enact.

“And Jill, as her fake character, one of the facts that I included was that she was a Mizzou superfan,” he said. “Being the good sport she is, even though it pained her, I believe she wore Mizzou something or other that day.”

While her coworkers sometimes give her grief for her affiliations — one April Fools’ Day black and yellow balloons covered her classroom floor — Tomczyk said it could be worse.

photo by: Contributed by Jill Tomczyk

Balloons and Mizzou signs decorate Tomczyk’s floor one April Fool’s Day.

Since Ozark, Mo., is closer to Missouri State University, there’s less MU fandom than there could be, Tomczyk noted. And when Tomczyk wears KU clothing items in public around town (“which is often”) other KU fans will sometimes stop her to say hello.

Tomczyk is a KU superfan. She doubts she’s missed watching a KU basketball game in the last 25 years — “Basketball games are put on our calendar like events are” — and she loves visiting campus in the fall — “It’s drop dead gorgeous when all the leaves are changing.”

But being about three hours away, she doesn’t make it up to campus as often as she’d like. So in her fourth grade classroom at Ozark West Elementary, Tomczyk keeps the KU spirit alive.