Allen Bellamy, GPTC welding instructor, said his students began building covers for the two handicapped-accessible dugouts at the ballpark in February, but March 27 was the first day they descended on Elmer Thomas Park to begin assembling the structures.

About 12 students were involved in installing the roofs, including juniors, seniors and adults. Work on the second dugout was completed March 28.

Bellamy said the project not only let his students help a worthwhile local charity, but gave them a chance to experience valuable real world work conditions, like wind, sun and deadlines.

Check out the Miracle League website

“We have a really nice shop,” Bellamy said. “But it’s a shop.”

He said the students completed the work ahead of schedule.

“They’ve really stepped up. Nobody thought we’d be this far today, including me,” Bellamy said.

Adult welding student Aaron Alexander said he was enjoying working on the dugouts.

“It’s been good,” he said. “It provides valuable experience in the field.”

Alexander said the project gave him and the other welding students an opportunity to practice skills like welding and properly fitting together a structure and painting.

The Miracle League Ballpark is a facility designed for the use of disabled players.

Enrollment Form - Fill out all information except permission signature then print, sign, and mail to:

Krystal Brue
GPTC/Career Connections
mailto:kbrue@greatplains.edu
4500 W. Lee Blvd.
Lawton, OK 73505

Hannah Cummins           Hastings Gift Certificate

Madison Martinez           I-Tunes Gift Certificate

Printable Career Training Guide

Where a small business can display and sell their products and/or services to the general public.

Limited to the first 50 applicants. Click here for more info and an application.

Photo by Jeff Dixon ~ Staff ~ Lawton Constitution

Shelly Tanner has diesel running through her veins.

The Elgin High School junior grew up in a family where large trucks were a big part of life.

Now, she’s the only female student in the Great Plains Technology Center’s diesel mechanics technician program.

“I’ve worked on trucks for a long time,” Tanner said. “It’s just a natural thing. I like working on trucks.”

Her family members work as truck drivers hauling rock for construction projects and working large-scale farm harvests up north. They were always working on large diesel trucks and she was always helping.

“I mainly just cleaned the trucks and helped rebuild the motors,” Tanner said. Eric Alexander, heavy truck service instructor for GPTC, said he’s only had two other women in the program—both of them were full-time adult students. He said Tanner is a good mechanic. He plans to send Tanner to the SkillsUSA competition later this year and expects her to do well.  ~ View full article on Shelly Tanner.

Photo by Jeff Dixon ~ Staff ~ Lawton Constitution

Students in the biomedical science program at the Great Plains Technology Center spent Tuesday figuring out the best way to kill different types of bacteria.

Each student received cultures of Bacillus cereus and Escherichia coli and an assortment of antibiotics, instructor Mary Truex said.

The antibiotics  penicillin, gentamycin, ampicillin, chloraphenicol, streptomycin and tetracycline  are each effective against different types of bacteria.

The students had to test their bacteria cultures with each antibiotic to see which antibiotics were effective against each bacteria.

Truex said the experiment is a good introduction to a common job function in the medical field figuring which antibiotics are best to treat a patient’s condition. The biomedical sciences program at GPTC is designed as a pre-college course of study for high school juniors and seniors who want to work in the medical field. Truex said graduates of the program have gone on to work in nursing, attend medical and dental school and become physical therapists. There are about 68 student currently enrolled in the academically rigorous biomedical sciences program.

Photo by Jeff Dixon ~ Staff ~ Lawton Constitution

The firefighter training program at the Great Plains Technology Center will be going adults-only in August.

The program, which started in 2000 primarily for high school juniors and seniors who wanted to become firefighters, will be open only to those 18 and older, with a high school diploma or GED, beginning with the fall 2012 semester, said Nancy Howell, GPTC emergency medical technician/fire training instructor.

The program currently is 10 months long and students meet for half a day. The students are trained up to the level of proficiency required for the Firefighter Level I certification test and the basic EMT test.

The revamped program will be an all-day program lasting only one semester.

Students will be trained to the level of proficiency required to take the Firefighter Level II certification test, which is the minimum level of certification required for employment by the Lawton Fire Department. The decision to change the program was made by the school’s advisory committee, which is made up of professional firefighters and EMTs, Howell said. The reasons for the changes are increasingly tough requirements for certification and tighter competition for firefighter jobs. Both the Firefighter Level I and Basic EMT certifications now require students to have more hours of training than was previously required, Howell said. When the current program for high school students was started, it was only the third such program in the nat6ion. The other two programs for high school students were located in Los Angeles and Cincinnati.