Mark Walters announces bid

Mark Walters has announced that he is seeking election to the Indian Capital Technology Center (ICTC) Board of Education.

Walters says he wants to serve in this position because he believes in the importance of vocational education. “It works,” he says. “It has been my life, and I have lived it. I credit my success to ICTC and my vocational education background. Serving on this board is one small way that I can give back to a school that has done so much for me.”

Walters lives in Muldrow, and is a lifelong resident of Sequoyah County. His love for vocational education began in 1981 at Muldrow Junior High in Bill Rhodes’ seventh-grade shop class. It continued through high school in Wayne Ford’s shop class. He loved shop so much, he married his shop teacher’s daughter, Shelley. They have been married for 28 years, and have one daughter, Madison.

In 1984, Walters enrolled in Mike Clark’s upholstery class at ICTC in Sallisaw. After graduation, his first job was as an upholsterer at Riverside Furniture in Fort Smith. But two years of factory work compelled him to go back to college. Being a hands-on learner, combined with his love for vocational education, led him to become a shop teacher. His first teaching job was in 1992 as the technology education (the new name for shop class) teacher at Pansy Kidd Middle School in Poteau. Two years later, he became the upholstery instructor at ICTC in Sallisaw. He served six years on the ICTC upholstery advisory committee, and also taught upholstery night classes.

In 2000, Walters earned his masters degree in school administration from Northeastern State University. In 2006, he began a small business called Mark’s Machinery & More, specializing in top quality woodworking machinery and accessories. In 2008, he became the industrial safety specialist on the ICTC BIS team, which included travel throughout the ICTC district conducting OSHA safety training. In 2015, he was faced with a tough decision. Mark’s Machinery was doing really well and he enjoyed being the industrial safety specialist, but could not continue doing both. After much prayer and some divine intervention, he left ICTC “to pursue the American Dream. I am also the guy that built the Ten Commandments sign and has the patriotic flag display on I-40 at Muldrow.”

Walters says it is time that we realize that every student is not going to college, and vocational education is the link between these students and success. He believes vocational-minded people should be in charge of Oklahoma technology centers.

Among the goals Walters has identified he would pursue, if elected:

• Push to make ICTC the state leader in career and technical education.

• Survey the workforce demands of employers in the ICTC district, and push to implement programs to meet their workforce needs.

• Push to bring back building trades programs like carpentry, cabinet making, masonry, plumbing, electricity and other much-needed programs.

• Start an incentive program for students, with the help of local employers, to pursue leadership opportunities in SkillsUSA.

• Pursue a massive marketing campaign to reach future students and parents to make them aware of the opportunities that are available at ICTC, and how career and technical education can make them successful.

• Figure out a travel arrangement for students wanting to attend a class offered on one of our other ICTC campuses, but not at their local ICTC campus so they can attend the class of their choice.