Pioneer Career and Technology Center is turning 50 this year! Along with a ceremony celebrating the milestone, an Alumni Meetup from 4-7pm.
Pioneer began as Pioneer Joint Vocational School serving nine home schools and later expanded to include 14 home schools. The doors opened on September 4, 1968 with 487 students, 19 vocational programs and 112,000 square feet.Today Pioneer has over 1,100 students, 36 career tech programs and 240,000 square feet.
On Friday, March 29, the 50th celebration consists of 3 events. The morning will start out with Pancakes for Parents for our current students and their parents. At 11am in the Gale J. Leimbach Arena will host a ceremony with several of our past superintendents along with Darrell Parks, Ph.D., who will speak on the influence career technical schools such as Pioneer have been throughout the country. Parks was the state director of career technical education for about 15 years covering the late 1970’s, 1980’s and into the 1990’s. Due to limited seating, anyone wishing to attend the ceremony should make a reservation by calling the school.
The final event of the day will be the Pioneer Alumni Meetup from 4-7 pm in the cafeteria, since its location has never changed.
“Career Centers don’t typically have class reunions since our student officially graduate from their home schools, so the meetup is for all our alumni to reminisce and check out how our school and programs have changed,” explained Greg Nickoli, Pioneer’s superintendent.
During the Alumni Meetup, tours will be available, the career tech labs and a Pioneer museum will be open. Alumni are encouraged to come out and see how much everything has changed in the last 50 years.
For more information, or to make reservations for the 11 am ceremony, call Pioneer at 419-347-7744, ext. 42101.