Broken Bow holds GEAR UP Career Fair

Broken Bow High School students learned a lesson in real life Tuesday as about 50 professionals visited the school for a Career Fair.

The fair was sponsored by the Southeastern Oklahoma State University Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) Partnership as part of a career mini-grant program for the month of November, which is National Career Month. Broken Bow High School Counselors Janet Neal and Misty Bible coordinated the event.

Many careers available to students in Southeastern Oklahoma were represented, as people in wildlife, engineering, industrial trades, communication, health care, the military, law enforcement, law, insurance, finance, accounting, education and more talked to students about their respective fields.

Students chose which fields were of interest to them ahead of time, and then participated in four sessions, with two speakers from similar fields in each session.

The school’s response to the Career Fair has been very positive, Bible said.

“Students gained first-hand information about a wide variety of careers while hopefully making contacts that will benefit them in their decision-making process,” she said.

The SOSU GEAR UP Partnership is a federally grant funded program that serves 1,852 eleventh- and twelfth-graders in 14 schools in Bryan, Choctaw and McCurtain counties. The schools are: Achille, Bennington, Boswell, Broken Bow, Caddo, Calera, Colbert, Durant, Fort Towson, Hugo, Rock Creek, Silo, Soper and Valliant.

For more information on GEAR UP, call (580) 745-3122 or visit www.se.edu/gearup.