PBTCC pair ‘break traditions,’ earn state honors

Two Poplar Bluff Technical Career Center students received recognition for breaking traditions and serving as role models in their respective area of study.

The Breaking Traditions Awards are sponsored by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in order to recognize outstanding non-traditional career and technical students and the adults who support them. Non-traditional students are defined as those studying for careers that are traditionally chosen by the opposite gender.

Both Quinton Bell, who studied health occupations, and Alissa Redding, who studied graphic design, said they didn’t really pay attention to being non-traditional students.

“I don’t really look at it that way,” Bell said. “I don’t think gender and all that stuff should play a part in it. It’s whatever you want to do.”

Redding said as far as she’s concerned with perseverance the gender numbers of an industry shouldn’t matter.

“It doesn’t really bug me that much,” she said. “I know I have to work hard on it no matter what field I go into, but I think with enough perseverance I can do it.”

She received recognition as the regional winner for Breaking Traditions after her teacher encouraged her to apply.

“Honestly, the whole total truth of this, my graphic design teacher didn’t really tell me much about what I was signing up for,” she said. “He knew I was good at writing and then he pulled that up, emailed it to me one day and said, ‘This needs good writing. Write something down for it.’ I did and I completely forgot about it afterwards.

“... They (my parents) were very surprised and honestly pretty proud.”

Her interest in studying graphic design came from a love for art from an early age.

Redding said her dad used to pull up Microsoft Paint on his computer when she was younger and let her spend time painting in it.

She used to live in Bernie and didn’t have opportunities or facilities like PBTCC provides for trades.

“It was whenever I moved here that I learned you can design stuff on the computer for a living. I wanted to give that a shot,” she said. “It’s turned out pretty good.”

Redding said she’s taking a gap year with everything going on right now and to work on savings for college. She received the A+ scholarship. She plans to attend Three Rivers College next year and later continue onto a four-year college she hasn’t decided on yet.

Bell was recognized at the state level as the secondary male Breaking Traditions winner.

He said his teacher asked him to write an essay for the award, and he did with the help of his English teacher even though he’s “not a fan of writing essays.”

“It took us probably four days to write,” Bell said. “Winning it was kind of a shock honor, I guess you’d say. To be recognized statewide is definitely something I’ve never done before. It’s definitely one of my higher achievements.”

His parents were shocked, Bell said, when he told them about the recognition, but they also were proud of it.

Bell said he took that path because it “gives people a jump start” on a future in the health care field.

“You can immediately go to work in a hospital or nursing home,” he said, but it also opens doors to future education.

He plans to attend Missouri State University in Springfield this fall to become a registered nurse and then continue his education to become a physician’s assistant.