Officials with the Trigg County Schools Board of Education had the red carpet unfurled for them during Thursday night’s regularly-scheduled meeting, when students and faculty from the Career Technical Center showcased their talents and pathways.
For more than an hour, board members snacked on home-made lasagna, garlic bread, salad, punch bowl cake and pecan bars all prepared by some of Faria P’Pool’s class, before hearing from Principal Erin Eagleson, former Trigg County football coach and educator Curtis Higgins, teachers Nathaniel Grinols, Brian Oliver and Noah Peake, as well as students Abigail Johnson, Lexie Eakes, Trenton New and Carsen Gresham.
Eagleson confirmed that, with the help of Higgins and many others in the building, correct Technical Education Database System — or TEDS — statistics have been a primary focus for the staff, and for two reasons.
1) More than 90% of high school students at Trigg County take at least once CTC class, and therefore must have a career pathway charted from freshman year all the way to graduation.
And 2) enrollment hours inside the building can, and usually do, lead to valuable state funding mechanisms, as well as potential educational unlocks for students who may pursue vocations and trades in post-secondary education.
Higgins said he spent the last year looking at every single student’s transcript, matching data points with the junior and senior student spreadsheets that come heavily detailed from another CTC educator, Lori Ricks.
Eagleson said Ricks “sets the standard” in understanding student pathways, and has been pivotal in navigating young adults to improved transcripts, work-based learning, dual-credit and co-op opportunities.
Meanwhile, Eakes and Johnson — cousins — frequently work about five hours a day through The Wildcat Den and the business department, designing T-shirts, embroidery and so much more through digital software and complicated industry hardware, which has required student troubleshooting and learning on-the-fly.
Furthermore, New and Gresham are but two of several students who are working through CTC pathways that would like to see a high school Hunting Club — where classmates could learn about the responsibility of gun and bow ownership, as well as the patience and respect for nature required to harvest wild game.
The duo said such a group could also learn about outdoor skills, promote conservation and sustainable use of natural resources and provide open opportunities to other students who may not have hunting access at home, and that any wild game procured and carefully field dressed could then be turned into a culinary delight — and perhaps a paid private dinner prepared by P’Pool’s students.
Contacts with the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife, they said, could also help young men and women work through getting their “Orange Card,” a difficult but essential task for anyone who wishes to partake in hunting and fishing within the Commonwealth.
CTC growth, Eagleson noted, doesn’t stop here. Grinols and Peake are working with students by crafting and drafting benches made from the recycled wood of the Trigg County High School Gymnasium remodel, as well as laser cutting, sanding and painting signs, while Oliver is working to foster a successful two-student co-op and goods exchange with Mallory Lawrence and Hancock’s Neighborhood Market.
Eagleson said he recently had students come up and ask him if they could skip a district pep rally, not because they wanted to leave school, but because they wanted to return to projects in the freshened CTC.
“It means,” he said, they “must be doing something right.”
— Director of Operations Michael Stinnett confirmed that concrete will be poured Friday for the front of the Trigg County Middle School, and that the new canopy will go up next week, with masonry and rock to follow.
The gymnasium, however, has a “small ray of hope” of being open before the 2025-26 Wildcats basketball season begins. Stinnett noted that the goals are up, and new bleachers will be delivered November 17 with a minimum two-week install required.
A lot of painting is complete, as well, but the front lobby, bathrooms, trophy case and concession stand still need considerable progress. The permanent bleachers have roughing and railing finished, but molding is not, and the steel walls for the elevator shaft should be installed Monday.
December 5 is the first home game, and Superintendent Dr. Rex Booth said contingencies are being explored, with the Trigg County Elementary and Middle school gyms as potential options.
