A Yankton High School (YHS) teacher says his experiences in the military influenced his teaching style and likely led to an award he recently received.
Alex Toupal, YHS Careers in Technical Education (CTE) teacher, has been named the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) 2025 Teacher of the Year for South Dakota and is currently under consideration for Teacher of the Year at the VFW’s national level.
A former YHS football player, Toupal is now the varsity assistant and head middle-school football coach. He was also the Student Council advisor. Toupal served in the South Dakota Army National Guard from 2007-2024, serving in active deployments, including Operation Iraqi Freedom, and retired with the rank of captain.
Toupal, who was nominated by some of his students, said he believes teaching involves building a connection with students.
“You see a lot of kids that struggle,” he told the Press & Dakotan. “Building that relationship with them is important and letting them know that, ‘Hey, things might not have gone exactly how you wanted them to go originally, but it doesn’t mean you can’t change.’”
In addition to helping students develop career goals, Toupal also exposes them to values regarding community, liberty, patriotism and responsibility, he said.
“Like with patriotism, you don’t necessarily teach it directly, but (we teach) those indirect things, those tenets, those nuances that come with it,” Toupal said. “Patriotism is defined as the love of your country, and I think a lot of people confuse the idea of patriotism as an identity, but it’s a lot more than an identity. It’s how you live your life.”
Also important is the idea of liberty being connected with patriotism, and that the price of liberty is responsibility, he said.
“I really stress the idea of ownership,” Toupal said. “If kids don’t feel a sense of connection to their community, to their country, they’re not going to feel that ownership, and they’re not going to necessarily feel as much of an attachment.”
In Toupal’s recommendation letter for the VFW award, Anna Arnold, commander of Yankton’s Ernest Bowyer VFW Post # 791, said that his distinguished military service gave him first-hand insights into sacrifice, resilience and honor and that he uses these insights daily in his classroom with an authenticity that resonates with students.
“It’s helping our future generations learn from the ideals of what Americanism and patriotism is — especially in today’s world,” she told the Press & Dakotan. “Yankton does a really great job of promoting those ideals to our students, and we’re quite proud to be able to offer such an award to those that are doing work we support in helping our (students) grow into better Americans.”
However, Toupal emphasized that he himself has grown and changed a great deal from the young man he was in 2008 when he graduated from YHS.
“When I walked through the hallowed halls of Yankton High School, I was an awful student,” he said. “I always joke that, if it weren’t for football, I probably would have dropped out of high school. That was something I was always passionate about. I felt like I made a genuine contribution there. I felt valued, validated.”
Toupal said that on finishing high school, he joined the Guard immediately, completed basic training and was deployed to Kuwait.
“Ever since, I did what was known as ‘Guard bumming,’” he said. “I picked up Guard jobs from here and there, relocating all over the state, and did a couple of other deployments. I think I’ve been to 30 countries at this point.”
But a 2016 motor-vehicle accident would lead to Toupal’s reevaluation of his career and ultimate early retirement from the Guard.
“I realized that my career might be a little bit limited after that,” he said. “That’s when I had to figure out what else I was going to do.”
The answer came from a substitute teaching assignment at the Beresford School District, where his wife, Kayla Toupal, also a YHS graduate, was teaching at the time.
“I really enjoyed it, and I got a sense of purpose,” he said. “I feel like I made a difference that day, just even as a substitute teacher.
Toupal applied to the University of South Dakota where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in History and a Bachelor of Science in History Education. While substitute teaching at YHS, the CTE teaching position opened up and applied immediately.
“I have a lot of conversations with kids about who I am and who I was,” he said. “It all comes down to perspective and how you want to envision the rest of your life.”
Also, Toupal said he aims to be approachable to students and open about how his path from high school to teaching was not a direct one.
“Through the military, you get a lot of experience in things that you otherwise necessarily wouldn’t,” he said. “Through those experiences, you gain a lot of perspective and also you see more of other people’s perspectives.”
Ultimately it leads to having more empathy for the human condition, he said.
“I think one of the beautiful things about teaching at Yankton High School is, you get kids from all different backgrounds,” Toupal said. “To see those perspectives and be able to relate with them and work with them has been extremely invaluable.”
