SHAWNEE, Kan. (KAKE) - A former Kansas Teacher of the Year will be spending the next two years in prison after pleading guilty following accusations of having sex with students.

KMBC-TV reports that Keil Hileman, a former Shawnee middle school teacher and 2004 Kansas Teacher of the Year, was sentenced to 12 months in prison for each of two counts of attempted unlawful sexual relations. Upon his release, Hileman will be required to register as a sex offender for 25 years.

Hileman was arrested in 2022, and charged with six counts of unlawful sexual relations, five counts of which were said to involve sex acts with the same student. Those incidents allegedly occurred between June 2017 and July 2018. Acts with a second student were alleged to have happened between September and October of 2022.

Hileman pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted unlawful sexual relations in August.

Hileman had been a teacher at Monticello Trails Middle School in Shawnee since 1995. In addition to teaching middle school students, Hileman had also taught an honors class for juniors and seniors from both Mill Valley and De Soto high schools.

Court records state the two students involved in the sex charges were both older than 16 at the time of the incidents. Hileman was removed from the school as a teacher once the accusations against him were made known to administrators.

Hileman was named 2004 Kansas Teacher of the Year in 2004, and was one of four finalists for National Teacher of the Year. He was inducted into the Mid-America Education Hall of Fame in 2010.

Dolly Parton also honored Hileman with the "Chasing Rainbows Award" in 2010 given to a teacher who's overcome adversity.

More recently, for the 2019-20 school year, he was nationally recognized as a LifeChanger of the Year nominee.