BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Keystone Heights Junior-Senior High School held its college and career fair in the campus gym on Friday, February 2.
Event organizer Carley Feagle said the fair was the fifth or sixth such annual event for the school.
Feagle added that the 36 vendors mainly were employers with apprenticeship opportunities with a few colleges mixed in.
She said that the Navy’s Fleet Readiness apprenticeship program hired a student from the fair last year and said Clay Electric Cooperative is a popular potential employer with students.
Senior Elijah Branch said he had been considering getting into aviation mechanics with the Air Force for a few years. He added that one of the Air Force representatives at the fair was in that field and answered many of his questions about the occupation.
“So, they’re talking to me about where they’re stationed and about what they do and what people can do whenever they get out of the service with that field of knowledge,” he said, “and it answered a lot of my questions about the Air Force.”
Branch said he also talked to the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, Florida’s Department of Agriculture, and Thermal King.
Kevin Leary and Vicki Tustin from Clay County Public Schools said they were not only recruiting teachers but other occupations as well.
“We are the largest employer in the county,” said Leary. “When you think about what it takes to run a school district, there’s a lot that goes into it, everything from food service, maintenance, bus drivers, and more.”
Negheen Zaman, a project manager with W.W. Gay, said she was coordinating with Local 234, which had a neighboring table. She added that both organizations were looking for applicants for the plumbers, pipefitters, and HVAC union’s apprenticeship program.
Mindie Roberts with Capital City Bank said her company hired an attendee of last year’s college and career fair.
“We hired a young lady right out of high school,” Roberts recalled. “She graduated on May 29th and started working for us on June 1st.”
“When most people see bank, they think tellers,” the recruiter continued. “But I cover 18 offices in North Central Florida, and we are looking for people in operations, networking, corporate security, things like that.”
She added that the bank offers part-time opportunities for college students.
“I worked with a young man recently who just wanted a part-time teller job, and he was going to Florida State,” she recalled. “I said, we have a job for you.”
