Thomas Huckaby is teacher at Fossil Ridge High School. He teaches geography, psychology, and history. He is also involved in the Game Society Club as well. Thomas lives here in Fort Collins with his wife and many pets. He has three dogs, two cats, and three horses. His kids are no longer at home, and he plans to continue teaching until he retires.

Before becoming a teacher, he was a lawyer. Throughout high school he was very into the marching band and orchestra. He also played lots of instruments when he was younger. Teachers from his past are what inspired him to teach the subjects he loves. He was very interested in history when he was young, and read lots of history books from his school library.

Huckaby started his teaching career doing substitute jobs  at Windsor Middle School, and substituted around Fort Collins for a while—before getting his first full teaching job at Front Range. He worked there for five years. Then, he got hired at Poudre High School and kept his job at Front Range. He worked there for another two years before working at Poudre full time. After working at Poudre for several years, Huckaby switched to working at an alternative school for the next seven years, where he worked with troubled kids and kids with learning problems. He believes the experience changed what his idea of being a teacher is. Then, he came to Fossil and has been here for the last fifteen years.

When Huckaby first started teaching, he believed that if you made the material fun, people will want to learn it. It did not take him long to realize that was not the case. He quickly realized the only way to make kids pay attention was to build relationships with them, talk to them, and connect with them on a new level—further than the subject matter. He believes teaching is about knowing your students and having real conversation with them, beyond just listing countries and states. Huckaby plans to continue teaching until he feels that he can no longer connect with his students. He wants to be able to care about the same things his students do, and he feels it is getting harder as he gets older.

Additionally, Huckaby uses the game society to stay connected with other students. He believes that having a place to go and simply play games can be good for students. He also greatly enjoys video games himself, and still plays current games as they come out on his PS4 console. The Game Society is his favorite part of his job—he loves the student interaction, and getting to see the students have fun playing games with each other.