TekNoXpo brings high schools to Havre

TekNoXpo brought high school students to take part in some hands-on experience in possible career choices or college pathways at Montana State University-Northern.

Holly Haas, the Big Sky Pathways coordinator at MSU-Northern, said this was her first year organizing the event.

"(TekNoXpo) was started six years ago to give students hand-on experience and to relate students from high school to college and the to careers," Haas said.

Haas said the event also gives high school students a chance to explore the different options in MSU-Northern colleges.

High school students from Choteau, Great Falls, Sunburst, Lewistown and others showed up at the exposition. Haas said schools all the way from Browning to Wolf Point were invited to partake.

"It gets them thinking: Is this something I want to do," Haas said.

Haas said this year's TekNoXpo is different from other years because the time students have to participate in activities was changed to 55 minutes instead of the 25-minute intervals the event provided in the past.

"We had good participation from the students," Haas said.

The event is similar to a career fair, but with fewer booths and more activities.

Tom Welch, an agricultural educator at Northern, was giving tours in a pickup truck outfitted with a GPS similar to those used on tractors.

Welch would let go of the steering wheel after pressing a button on the GPS screen and the pickup would drive itself through curves and straight stretches down the road in front of the Auto Diagnostics and Metals Technology Building and then past MacKenzie Hall.

"It's been a revolution in agriculture," Welch said. "Almost as big as switching horses to tractors."

Welch said the technology now lets the farmer take care of other tasks while the tractor follows a path set up by GPS coordinates chosen by the farmer.

Other activities students could partake in were operating skid steers and backhoes, working an excavator through a simulation with the same controls one would find in the machine and many other things.

The equipment for the "equipment rodeo," in which students could use nskid steers and backhoes to complete games, was from Torgerson's, RDO Equipment, Moodie Implement Co., Tilleman Motor Co. and Titan Machinery.

There were a total of nine stations for students to partake in this year.

"I think, all in all, it went pretty well," Haas said. "I've loved it and I think the kids enjoy it a lot."

The college of technical sciences also gave out three $500 scholarships to high school students; one of which was from Havre.

Larry Strizich, a professor at Northern, said the TekNoXpo was originally started with a limited number of the colleges at the university, such as the diesel program. Eventually, the other technical colleges got on board with the idea and the event has been getting larger ever since.

Strizich said the exposition is meant to expose students to the skills and technology that companies are asking for them to acquire through education in universities and trade schools. Students who get this education could jump from making average salaries to making six figures, Strizich said.

"It's highly technical skills - not just turning a wrench," Strizich said.