Adult Student Honored for Breaking Traditions
POPLAR BLUFF – Recent Poplar Bluff Technical Career Center graduate of the practical nursing program, Roger Ray, has been selected as a post-secondary male regional award winner of the Missouri Breaking Traditions contest.
Ray is eligible for a $100 scholarship from the Foundation of Missouri Women and a $1,000 scholarship from Linn State Technical College. Presently, he has accepted a position at Kneibert Clinic Urgent Care, where he plans to work for a while before becoming a registered nurse.
Roger Ray is pictured with his former nursing instructor Ruth Hutcheson of the Poplar Bluff Technical Career Center.
“I’m a non-traditional student in three different ways: my gender, my age and my limited education experience after high school,” wrote Ray on the nomination form, which was submitted by his nursing instructor, Ruth Hutcheson. “If you know of something you want to do – do it! It doesn’t matter if it is a ‘male’ or ‘female career’ – do what you want to do with your work.”
Sponsored by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Regional College and Career Consultants, Breaking Traditions has for the past 21 years honored outstanding students who have based their career choices on their interests and abilities, rather than their gender. Nontraditional is defined as occupations in which individuals from one gender comprise less than 25 percent of the individuals employed in that field.