The Poplar Bluff R-I School District’s Technical Career Center celebrated its 55th anniversary with an open house Friday in honor of the achievement.
“Since 1967, we’ve had programs in the Poplar Bluff area,” said TCC Director Charles Kinsey as he showed those in attendance around the three-building campus.
The TCC’s main building, Kinsey noted, was one of 57 career centers built decades ago as part of the State of Missouri’s consortium.
Through the years, Kinsey said, more and more programs have been added to the local center, which serves not only Poplar Bluff, but also 10 other regional school districts and communities.
Current programs include auto service technology, building trades, computer maintenance and repair, HVACR, computer graphics and print technology, health occupations, welding, cosmetology, aesthetics and barber, auto collision repair, Project Lead the Way and culinary arts.
Some classes are open to adults, Kinsey said.
Roger Slayton, who taught at the TCC from 1999-2003, recalled past expansions of the programs.
“I’m the one that put the grant together to move welding and auto collision into B Building, and I started the cosmetology program,” Slayton said. “I got a phone call from a lady at Doniphan who wanted her daughter to be a cosmetologist. There was no place to get training, and she gave me a good chewing out over the telephone, and that put the bug in my head.”
Through the years, Kinsey said, the TCC offerings have put a lot of students into the workforce.
“Our school has supported us in such a way that industry has benefited, our communities have benefited and the tax base has benefited with people who have skills that are ready to go to work upon graduating high school,” Kinsey said.
The importance of career education, Kinsey said, can’t be understated.
“Our students get the skills they need, whether it’s going to be a long term career or a part-time gig,” he said. “They have the ability to support themselves through college or whatever their goals are when they leave school.
“They have industry that’s going to know they came through a career center and they are a good hire prospect.”
Slayton agreed.
“I think it’s very important. I was asked once to go give a big speech, and when I started writing, I thought ‘you get up in the morning in your house and turn on your lights, you hit the thermostat to turn up your heat, you get in your car … everything you do is based on some type of technical vocational trade,” he said.
The jobs can also pay very well.
“Most people who are proficient in Vo-Tec training nowadays make more money than high school teachers and other things,” Slayton said.
Kinsey likes to talk to prospective students using a statistic which says “students that are coming here to just learn some skills or to go to work in that field statistically are much higher likely to get a job than traditional students who go to a community college or whatever.”
In the years ahead, Kinsey said, he hopes to expand programs at the TCC and involve more students.
“Our goal, long term, is to continue to serve as many students as possible,” he said.
He also would like to involve more local businesses in the education programs.
“Would like to see more programs, more partnerships and more businesses coming in early and getting in front of our kids,” he said.
As far as program expansion, Kinsey said, some things already are in the works.
“The cool thing is we’re looking at other areas. We’ve got some heavy programs that people are interested in, and we’re doing some surveys of students,” he explained. “Not this coming school year, but the year after, we may be trying to kick off another program so long as we’ve got the numbers.”
Currently, Kinsey said, the TCC has about 290 active students, which is slightly above the long-term average.