Hays CISD students take advantage of the opportunity to talk to one of more than 64 representatives from colleges and armed service branches at the college fair recently held at Hays High. (Photo by Jana King)
by JIM CULLEN
Local high school seniors have a lot on their minds these days and it isn’t all about having fun their last year at Hays, Lehman or Live Oak Academy. Many are using their foresight to anticipate the next academic step in their lives, one which local educators hope will include higher education. To that end, counselors like Hays High’s Kathy Arendt, Lehman’s Allison Tillotson, and Live Oak’s Marylynn Weaver are doing all they can to facilitate the process.
Such was the case recently as Arendt took her turn in coordinating and staging the Texas Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers College Fair on the Hays High School campus.
Sixty-four colleges and armed service branches sent representatives to the huge local fair. Arendt reports these college fairs are designed to allow students “to be exposed to dozens of different colleges, ask questions of as many as they’d like, and pick up information from those representatives.”
“It expands their range of knowledge for college options,” Arendt says, adding that it “builds strong relationships with 64 college recruiters, puts our district on the map for these colleges, and gives our students valuable exposure.”
Justifying the huge turnout of recruiters, Lehman, Live Oak and Hays high schools turned out their own massive showing of students. Seventy-five Live Oak Academy students visited the event, 250 made the cross-district trek from Lehman, and the hosting Rebels put all of its 420 seniors and 550 juniors into the fair.
The fair offered participating recruiters a Texas Pie Company-catered luncheon (termed a “huge success” by Arendt) and the coordinator’s assessment of the overall event was that all involved gained from the experience.
