FROM: Ann Houston, Communications and Marketing
Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education
1500 W. Seventh Ave., Stillwater, OK 74074
Phone: 405-743-5112 Fax: 405-743-5541
e-mail:ahous@okcareertech.org

Tech-Now, CareerTech Connect

If not for Tech-Now, Nathan Menifee, a senior at Yukon High School, admits he probably would not have stepped into the advertising arena as a career choice. Tech-Now helped him pursue a career as a graphic artist.

Because of the program, and as recipient of a fee waiver awarded by the Canadian Valley Technology Center, El Reno campus, Menifee will attend his second year there as a post-secondary graphic design student, free of charge.

Brent Wall, a senior at Southeast High School in Oklahoma City, has been a student in the Tech-Now program for three years. Tech-Now led him to the Aviation Maintenance Technology (AMT) program at Metro Technology Centers in Oklahoma City.

As a Tech-Now cash winner last year, Wall set his sights on winning the CareerTech fee waiver for post-secondary students to continue in the AMT program at Metro Tech, according to Marilyn Burr. Burr is the disability program specialist with the Oklahoma Office of Handicapped Concerns.

Tech-Now is an after school and summer program, funded the first five years by the Oklahoma Developmental Disabilities Council, currently funded by the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Disability Employment Policy and the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

“Career research is at the center of all Tech-Now projects,” Burr said. “The students research training and educational opportunities for a certain career, as well as expected salary, prediction of the job market in that field.”

Tech-Now provides students with disabilities access to technology, technology training and encouragement to explore potential education and employment opportunities to prepare them to be productive, contributing citizens of Oklahoma’s future.

During the six years of the Tech-Now program history, Oklahoma High School High Tech has had a zero percent high school dropout rate for students completing one or more year(s) of the program.

The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History at the University of Oklahoma sponsored this year’s competition.

Sponsors for prizes and awards ranging from scholarships to cash to donated hard and software include Oklahoma’s public colleges or universities, Oklahoma CareerTech’s technology centers; Oklahoma One-Call; General Motors; Mid-America Chapter of Paralyzed Veterans of America; AMBUCS and Microsoft Corporation.

Tech-Now has programs at schools in Bethany, Blackwell, Cache, Clinton, Del City, Midwest City, Mustang, McCloud, Piedmont, Weatherford, Western Heights, Yukon and Oklahoma City’s Southeast and U.S. Grant High Schools.

Information about Tech-Now or the ceremony is available from Marilyn Burr, Disability Program Specialist with the Oklahoma Office of Handicapped Concerns at 521-3756, or visit the website at www.tech-now.biz.

posted 5/31/05