Story By Van Mitchell,
Reprinted Courtesy of Stillwater NewsPress

Graduation Hat Trick

Aaron Kramer is graduating this spring.

Actually, he is graduating from high school, Meridian Technology Center and Northern Oklahoma College, all by age 18.

Kramer, a Guthrie resident, has been home schooled, is enrolled in MTC’s information technology program and will receive his associate’s degree from NOC in network engineering.

He is the son of David and Pam Kramer of Guthrie.

“I feel pretty good about it,” the soft-spoken Kramer said.

Kramer is able to receive his associate’s degree from NOC through a cooperative agreement between CareerTech and a number of two-year colleges in the state. High school students are able to take college credit while attending a technology center and have those credit hours “banked” until the student graduates high school and is accepted at that school. Once enrolled, those “banked” hours will appear on the student’s college transcript, said Linda Thompson, Tech Prep coordinator/career counselor at MTC. “I think he’s great,” Thompson said of Kramer. “I don’t think I have ever heard of a student graduating from high school, Meridian Technology Center and college by the end of their senior year. He is to be commended.” Kramer said the only senior classes he lacked to graduate high school were a government and a English class.

Aaron Kramer(center) will graduate this spring from high school, Meridian Technology Center, and Northern Oklahoma College. DeAnna Little (left) and Matthew Jones, information technology instructors, taught Kramer at MTC

He said he wanted to take those classes through NOC and earn high school and college credit at the same time.

DeAnna Little, an IT instructor at MTC who taught Kramer, said MTC students can earn up to 60 college credit hours by taking 42 at MTC and 18 general education courses through NOC.

Little said Kramer handled the pressure of attending MTC and NOC well.
“There were some hard times when he had a lot of pressure on him, but his parents were very supportive of him and helped him through to see his goal.”

Kramer attended MTC during the morning and drove to Tonkawa three days a week, taking nine hours for two semesters.
Kramer said doing both wasn’t hard to handle.

“It was a good experience,” he said. “The driving got old after a while, though.”

Kramer said he plans to attend a four-year school that will accept all his credit hours, which include Oklahoma State University-Okmulgee and Northeastern at Tahlequah.

Kramer said he plans to finish his bachelor’s degree, most likely in networking, and then pursue a career in aviation.

He is taking private flying lessons in Guthrie and hopes one day to be a commercial airline pilot.

Kramer said he has always loved airplanes and flying.

“It’s a pretty awesome feeling,” Kramer said. “Nothing can beat that.”