February is Career & Technical Education Month in Texas, and local employers and educators are seizing the chance to broaden students’ horizons as they consider the future.
An array of area workforce partners have crafted an event to put job opportunities front and center for local juniors and seniors through the 2026 Jobs Y’all East Texas Career Exploration Fair.
Set for Feb. 11, Kilgore Economic Development Corporation is spearheading the event in conjunction with Workforce Solutions East Texas and Texas Workforce Commission. They’ve all partnered with Kilgore College and Kilgore ISD as well as Longview EDC, Henderson EDC, Henderson Area Chamber of Commerce and the rootEd Alliance.
More than 800 local students are set to participate from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. next Wednesday at Henderson Civic Center at 1500 Lake Forest Pkwy.
“It is a career exploration event, not a job fair,” emphasized KEDC Executive Director Lisa Denton. With about 50 employers participating, students will be able to explore a wide variety of options. “They can learn what is available to them as they’re graduating – high-demand, high-paying jobs that are available right here in our area.”
It’s so important to prepare high schoolers for rewarding careers, KEDC’s Katherine Kirkpatrick agreed, and schools across the area are working hard to equip youngsters to provide for themselves and their families in a myriad of ways.
There are many paths into the workforce, she added, and the more opportunities students see, the better equipped they’ll be to determine what’s best for their future.
“The great majority, 70 percent of our workforce in Kilgore and the surrounding 12 counties, don’t have a four-year degree and more than 40 percent don’t have any college at all,” she noted. “The idea behind Jobs Y’all is to help expose high school juniors and seniors in the area to good, local jobs to help them understand the types of skills they need in order to get those jobs.”
“Students cannot aspire to jobs and careers they know nothing about. That has been so critical here as we approach workforce development.”
The Jobs Y’all program is funded by a grant from the Texas Workforce Commission, administered by East Texas Council of Governments through Workforce Solutions East Texas.
“We reached out to other communities,” Kirkpatrick said. “The grant is for rural schools. It’s for high school juniors and seniors to help expose them to high-demand, high-wage jobs in the local area.”
There’s particular emphasis on STEM-oriented jobs (science, technology, engineering and math) but other employers are welcome to participate as well.
Per Kirkpatrick, “We really focused on our primary employers in Kilgore.”
The emphasis isn’t on recruiting but, rather, on presenting students with careers they haven’t yet encountered.
“The idea is to have some interactive, show-and-tell opportunities,” she said, “one of which is a really cool thing: East Texas Workforce Solutions has something called Career Vision Goggles.”
It’s virtual reality, giving students a first-person view of being a lineman, an EMT or some other career that is best experienced, not explained.
“They can put these goggles on for a day in the life of that career.”
Kilgore EDC will have a table as well, Kirkpatrick added, not just as a promoter of the event but as a local employer.
“A lot of these students probably don’t know what it’s like to be in economic development for the city,” she said, welcoming Kilgore Mayor Ronnie Spradlin along with Kilgore Police and Fire to give young visitors a solid look behind the curtain of civil service.
The schedule for participating schools includes:
9:00 AM – 10:15 AM
Leverett’s Chapel (35 students)
Kilgore High School (250 students)
10:00 AM – 11:15 AM
Pine Tree High School (40 students)
Laneville High School (15 students)
11:00 AM – 12:15 PM
West Rusk High School (165 students)
Overton High School (60 students)
1:00 PM – 2:15 PM
Carlisle High School (54 students)
Henderson High School (100 students)
East Texas Charter School (25 students)
