October Contract Construction Student of the Month named

A senior at Walhalla High School is the October Contract Construction Student of the Month, tells Dr. Meghan Ketterman, Director of Business Development at Contract Construction. “The October 2018 Student of the Month is a Walhalla High School student but was nominated by Mr. Jonas Crooks from the Hamilton Career Center and that is Mr. Cole Roper. So, Cole I want to congratulate you.” Roper shared these thoughts on receiving the honor. “This really means a lot to me in that people recognize how hard I work on and off the job site and I would just like to thank Mr. Crooks for helping me along the way.” Crooks, a Pre-engineering teacher at the Hamilton Career Center, had this to say about the kind of student Cole Roper is both in and out of the classroom. “Cole is doing a great job with the hand-on stuff that we were doing in class and I noticed that when he was working on things he had a really good common sense approach to things. Then when he hit Civil Engineering and Architecture he really shined in that field. He just reached a different level compared to his classmates. He had a lot of outside experiences through his church and had been working other jobs. He had a desire to work that so many kids don’t have right now. He doesn’t mind hard work and he has a desire to work and many times during class he wanted to know how it fits in the real world. That is something that I look for in a student.” This is a new program in the School District of Oconee County (SDOC) aimed at recognizing students interested in building the construction workforce in the county, adds Dr. Ketterman. “We are very proud at Contract Construction to have the leadership and vision of a company be forward thinking because of the shortage of construction workers that we have in our industry and our leadership in the company wants to build the workforce from the ground up and that is starting with students in local high schools and career center construction programs in order to capitalize on their leadership in and outside of the classroom. So, that is really the mission and vision of this Student of the Month Program.” Each month during the school year, teachers will submit applications to a review panel and then one student in the district will be recognized as the Contract Construction Student of the Month.