 I have three grown sons. Jay will be 30, Jared is 28 and John just turned 21. I tell you what; all three boys are totally different.
Jay was the Core 40 scientific engineer type. We had all the ingredients to help him excel at Tri County Schools. And he did excel. Jay was a distinguished graduate from the Air Force Academy and is now a Captain and Executive Officer in the Air Force.
When Jay started at the Academy, he was thrown in with kids from large cities and big high schools. The thing that put him over the top in the engineering mechanics program was the technical CAD programming experience he had from high school. Other schools have the academics but not the practical applications. Jay simply had a background that others didn't have.
Here is what's interesting. My youngest, John, had difficulty in school. He was more interested in hands-on work. The very same vocational program that helped my oldest also helped John achieve by giving him hands-on skills in the building trades program. Today, he's hired on at Purdue in the masonry division and learning artisan concrete.
My boy in the middle is a Deputy Sherriff in White County and just finished his last class at Ball State for a criminology degree. Jared took academics, but he also took the same technical classes that the other two boys took. It helped his thinking and logic skills.
Three different kids, three different avenues in life. Same exceptional program. I'll go out on a limb here. I think our vocational training program is one of the best in the country, right here in the middle of our corn fields.
I'm happy with how my kids have turned out. I believe all the folks in the community who know about the details are proud of my kids and vice versa, we are proud of all the kids we know and what they have accomplished.
Phil Bear was born in the middle of the corn field in Wolcott and graduated from Wolcott High School in 1970 just before the schools consolidated. Phil provides farm, business and municipality insurance out of his Heiny Insurance office in Monticello. His wife Jennifer teaches 3rd grade at Tri-County. |