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 As
an ESPN studio production assistant, Ceyla McCullah has a job that most
armchair quarterbacks would kill for she gets paid to watch televised
sporting events.
McCullah, a graduate of Pryor High School, credits agricultural education
and FFA with teaching her time management, dependability and work ethic
skills she uses on the job today.
That's why she is being recognized as one of Oklahoma's CareerTech
Champions.
CareerTech Champions are alumni of the system's programs or student
organizations who have found success in a career and attribute much of
that success to their career and technology education experience.
"At ESPN you work under tremendous time constraints,
so you have to work hard and be efficient," McCullah said.
McCullah has a strong connection to FFA and agricultural education. Since
her father, George McCullah, was an "ag" teacher at Pryor, she
grew up surrounded by the well-known blue and gold, FFA jackets.
"My father instilled many positive characteristics that I take with
me today," she said. "He never pushed me, but I always wanted
to please him."
McCullah developed many of her leadership skills by being actively involved
in Pryor's FFA chapter. She made four trips to the state speech contest
and never missed an alumni leadership camp, Made for Excellence conference
or a state FFA convention. One of her favorite memories was the bus trip
to the Washington Leadership Conference in 1995.
She also loved showing cattle and was active in the Oklahoma Jr. Cattlemen's
Association, Oklahoma Club Calf Association and the Oklahoma and National
Jr. Chianina Associations.
In her senior year, Celya ran for state FFA secretary. "It was my
most memorable moment in FFA, sitting in the bleachers at the Myriad waiting
for the results of the state FFA secretary's race to be announced,"
she said.
Although she lost the election, McCullah soon learned that when a door
closes, a window opens. Serving as a FFA state officer is a time intensive
obligation in the year following high school graduation. By not being
elected, a whole new world of possibilities opened that she had not previously
considered.
After high school, McCullah accepted a scholarship to attend Cornell University
in New York where she majored in communications with a minor in sports
management. At college, she became involved in several extra curricula
activities such as being wrestling manager and an assistant to the athletic
director. She also lettered as manager twice, served as communications
student advisor and served on the student board for the Class of 2000
campaign.
Graduating in 2000, McCullah joined ESPN. Her current job responsibilities
include cutting highlights for shows such as Sports Center, NHL 2Nite,
College Hoops 2Nite and RPM 2Nite. McCullah and her colleagues edit all
videos for these shows and write scripts to go with them.
She is also responsible for keeping detailed event logs for athletic events
in the United States and Canada. One of her proudest accomplishments is
the Oklahoma-Nebraska highlight currently on the ESPN Emmy reel.
"There are some cool perks with this job," McCullah added. "I've
gotten to travel with RPM 2Nite to the Indy 500, the NHRA US Nationals,
as well as the IRL Michigan 400. I've met sports personalities like Steve
Young, Sterling Sharpe and Ray Bourque. It's just cool to walk around
and see Pedro Martinez in your place of work."
McCullah says that she tries to keep in touch with rural life by making
monthly trips outside into the countryside, when she is not traveling.
"I need a dose of reality sometimes to reinstate the fact there is
more to life than sports," she said. "It reminds that my roots
are still in agriculture."
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