Event educated 7th graders on job options

Seventh grade may be early in a student’s education, but it’s not too soon to be thinking of options for the future.

The Lawrence County Educational Service Center hosted a Career Fair on Thursday at Ohio University Southern, giving a sampling of jobs available in the region.

“We have seventh graders from all over the county here,” Johnna Lunsford, curriculum supervisor for the ESC, who organized the event, said. “We have 16 career presenters and the students are rotating around to each one.”

In total, six school districts from the county attended the fair, where students heard from presenters in the Main Rotunda including Our Lady of Bellefonte Hospital, Collins Career Technical Center, Ohio Mean Jobs and local businesses like Unger Shoes.

“We’re just here to talk about nursing,” Erica Buckholz, an RN at OLBH, said. She was manning a booth along with a fellow nurse, Sarah Sansom.

Jewel Hackworth was representing the Ironton-Lawrence Family Guidance Program.

“We’re here to talk about social work and working with the community,” she said. “Different types of counseling, such as anger management and drug and alcohol counseling.”

She said they focused on how students could learn anger management and engage in bullying prevention.

Holly Stone, of the career assistance team of CCTC, said she there as part of a countywide program that had representatives from every school district.

“We plan on starting in middle school to get students thinking about jobs,” she said.

She said the program provides information about the work environment and the skills needed.

She said the program has taken middle school students for a campus visit to Shawnee State University, as well as Marathon Oil.

“They looked at all the different jobs available at Marathon,” she said.
She also noted that eighth graders will be visiting CCTC to get a sense of the programs offered at the vocational school.