By SCOTT AUST / Greater Garden City
More than 600 area seventh graders took advantage of the opportunity to explore potential careers on Wednesday during a HirePaths Career Hunt at the Finney County Exhibition Building.
HirePaths is a Kansas-based organization launched in 2021 whose mission is to connect young people to high-demand careers.
During Wednesday’s Career Hunt, students took part in interactive sessions where they learned directly from business and industry leaders about the various careers available in their industries.
Students chose 3 of 12 activities in the following industries, including:
- Aerospace & Aviation
- Agriculture & Animal Health
- Business & Administration
- Construction
- Culinary & Food Servicce
- Energy
- Manufacturing
- Medical
- Public Service
- Service
- Technology
- Transportation
Students represented Horace Good and Kenneth Henderson middle schools in Garden City, Holcomb, St. Mary’s Catholic School, Ingalls, Lakin, Deerfield, Scott City and Sublette
Joe Coles, Director of Western Kansas Careers Showcases, moderated the event and kept things on track.
At the start of the morning and afternoon sessions, Coles gathered all the students together and talked about the reasons for the event and stressed the importance of taking career planning seriously, looking people in the eye and making a good first impression.
Afterward, Coles called it an “amazing” day.
“All the middle school kids came in and were very attentive and very locked in as a whole,” Coles said. “Very respectful. It was a very well-organized day, and that was the key for it right there. Everything was planned out ahead of time and it worked like clockwork.”
Horace Good student Maci Flowers chose to learn more about Aviation, Medical and Public Service. She said her favorite of the three was Medical.
“I want to be a dental hygienist,” Flowers said, adding that she enjoyed learning about all the things that session presented.
For the Energy activity, students had to choose which power producers to use to provide electricity to a small city and were then challenged with risk cards that could affect each type of power.
Kiara Sobalvarro, Horace Good seventh-grader, said the Energy session was interesting to learn about how different types of power producers figure into the mix.
“Each one has their pros and cons,” she said. “Like nuclear and coal have higher risks than solar or wind.”
Sobalvarro also chose the Medical and Technology industries, but felt she learned the most in the Energy session. With an aunt in the medical field, Sobalvarro said she already knew a bit about that industry.
Business and industry representatives also enjoyed the event.
Lance Rupp, of the Southwest Kansas Builders Association, and Stewart Nelson, architect with GMCN Architects, led sessions about Construction, in which students used straws to build a base and then determined how much weight the structure would bear.
“We learned too,” Rupp said.
Nelson jokingly lamented that one of the kids who had the best ideas for the activity said she wants to be a radiologist.
“We struck out there,” he said with a laugh.
Omar Angeles, program coordinator at Empirical Foods, said the Manufacturing activity went very well. Working with middle school students is something the company has been trying to get more perspective on.
“With the kinds of programs that we do with the Bureau of Foods, we work with high school students on getting them scholarship opportunities. Being able to talk to seventh and eighth graders is a great way to get more exposure about what we do.”
Angeles said in the activity, they were able to demonstrate how manufacturing works using beans to represent beef products.
“It really gives them a good vision as to what we do, the importance of working as a team, having good communication, the effectiveness of being efficient and timely,” Angeles said. “We had a great time. The kids enjoyed wearing the hard hats. They got really excited and energized.”
Teachers were impressed with the organization of the event.
Sarah Wise, Kenneth Henderson Middle School ELA teacher, confessed being a little leery of taking every seventh grader out of school at the same time.
“But this has being incredibly organized. The presenters are very knowledgeable, relatable to the students,” she said. “Years ago, they had something called GEMS, Girls Engineering Math and Science. That was a great opportunity but much less organized. This is structured. The kids are much more engaged.”
Megan Doull, Seventh Grade Social Studies Teacher at Kenneth Henderson, agreed students are getting more opportunities at a younger age to explore career options than in the past.
Doull said counselors come into the classroom for individual study lessons where they learn about career path exploration which they share with their families.
“They’re much more aware than they used to be,” she said. “And when they go to high school they’re sectioned out from 10th grade to senior year so it’s probably good to know ‘I want a career in arts and communication’ for example, because they can target those classes for it.”
The Career Hunt was hosted by Finney County Economic Development, Garden City Area Chamber of Commerce, and Garden City Public Schools. Garden City Community College provided water bottles for the students to take home.
Industry and businesses who participated included Finney County GIS, Garden City Co-op, Security State Bank, Downtown Vision, Great Western Dining, City of Garden City, Black Hills Corp, Tyson Foods, Common Spirit, Coldwell Banker The Real Estate Shoppe, Finney County, Empirical Foods, Yuriy Drubinskiy, 1 Up Aerial Imaging & Videography, American Implement, Conestoga Energy, and Finney County Health Department.
