PORTLAND — Crook County Middle School science teacher Michael Geisen was in the middle of a lesson the other day when he got a message from the Prineville school’s front office: The White House was on the line.

He was terribly sorry, Geisen sent back, but could they call him later? He was with his seventh-graders, and they mattered more.

Just another day at the office for Geisen, who on today will be the center of a Rose Garden ceremony at the White House hosted by President Bush, naming him the 2008 national teacher of the year.

It will be the first time since 1973 that an Oregon teacher has received the honor, and the second year in a row for a teacher from the Pacific Northwest. Andrea Peterson, a music teacher from Granite Falls, Wash., won last year.

“I’ve done demos involving 14,000 volts and lived to explain them,” Geisen wrote in his 13-page application to the Council of Chief State School Officers, which runs the teacher of the year program. “I’ve totaled my vehicle in a 60 mph crash on the way to work, but taught the whole day anyway. I have yet to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but I have my top students working on it. Most importantly, though, I’ve taught with the integrity, passion and heart that inspire those around me to become better at what they do.”

Originally trained as a forester, Geisen realized he belonged in a classroom one foggy, fateful day standing alone atop a deep chasm, realizing how much he missed the students he’d worked with as a forestry teaching assistant at the University of Washington. When his first child was still just an infant, he went to Southern Oregon University in Ashland for a master’s in teaching, intending to teach at a high school.

He never guessed he’d wind up in a middle school, often dismissed as the hormonally charged wasteland between cuddly elementary schools and the buckle-down rigors of high school. But as a student teacher at a Southern Oregon middle school, Geisen said, he clicked with the kids, with their willingness to participate and innate curiosity, and he’s never looked back.

Around Crook County Middle School, he’s known as the teacher who makes science fun, even for the kids who think they’re science illiterates. He writes songs on different course topics, develops games that serve as clutch mnemonic devices, and helped start “The Night of the Electric Creation,” in which students design projects to show off their new knowledge about energy and electricity. (Best-in-show is awarded the prestigious “Golden Chicken,” Geisen wrote in his application.)

“In a field that is thought of as very left-brain and analytical, I try and infuse as much creativity as possible, whether that is writing songs about a particular science concept, or drawing pictures or through humor,” Geisen said.

His colleagues say that he constantly goes above and beyond his daily duties. Rocky Miner, the principal at Crook County Middle School, points to several summers ago, when Geisen, an avid rock-climber, spent weeks fundraising and getting donations, then persuaded students to help him build a rock climbing wall at the middle school, complete with a mural of nearby Smith Rock, a climbers’ mecca.

He also worked with his fellow science teachers to turn a barren courtyard at the school into a wildlife garden that echoes the Oregon’s diverse native vegetation zones, from the high desert to the Oregon Coast. And a presentation he put together on the deadly effects of microbes on children in the developing world inspired several of his students to raise money for third world disease relief.

Michael Witnauer, who works with the school’s student laptop program, had Geisen as a mentor while he was student teaching.

“It’s about the different things he does with the students, activities I had not seen people use before,” Witnauer said. “One of his strengths is the way he connects with the kids.”

At lunchtime and before school, Geisen’s room is often full of students who have come to visit his turtle, join him for an impromptu jam session on their guitars, or just have a safe place to sit and talk. Geisen sometimes calls it the “Ketchup Club,” since he’s around to offer extra help to any student who has fallen behind, and needs to “catch up.”

Wherever life takes him, Geisen said he expects to remain in the classroom. But he’ll spend most of the next year traveling around the country, speaking out about teaching and learning.

“Hey, I am used to dealing with seventh-graders,” he said. “Adults who want to hear what I have to say will be a piece of cake.”