Jonesboro, AR – (JonesboroRightNow.com) – Jan. 31, 2025 – The Northeast Arkansas Career and Technical Center (NEACTC) will be opening its doors to alumni as it celebrates a half-century of education and opportunity during Then and Now: Celebrating 50 Years of Innovation.
This celebration will take place on March 14 from noon to 2 p.m. at the Northeast Arkansas Career and Tech Center, located behind the Jonesboro High School at 1727 S. Main St.
According to Alex Ragsdale, NEACTC Special Projects Manager, this open house-style event will give alumni a chance to reconnect, explore, and celebrate the impact NEACTC continues to have on its community and its students.
“We wanted an open house to invite all of our past alumni to show what the legacy of curating career skills and that we are still teaching career skills,” Ragsdale said. “I know that there’s a handful of people that went through our center that found their niche in the world, and they are still at it.”
NEACTC opened its doors in 1975 and serves 10th through 12th grade students across Northeast Arkansas.
The school currently offers 11 different programs designed in collaboration with industry partners and local businesses, including industrial technology, engineering design and production, welding Technology and fabrication, culinary arts and hospitality, unmanned aircraft systems and drones, construction and HVACR (heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration), computer networking, medical professions, certified nursing assistant, auto service and auto collision.
The school is state-funded; therefore, the state decides which programs are most needed, which has led to some classes being replaced or changed over the years, Ragsdale said.
For example, while the school still offers HVACR, at one time, it was HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning), which had been replaced with construction, focusing on traditional carpentry. However, construction then went away for a little bit as the program was refocused on HVACR. Now construction is back, but it is tied in with HVACR.
There have also been programs that have stood the test of time, such as welding; and still other programs that have been completely replaced, such as Commercial Art and Criminal Justice. There are new programs added to the roster such as industrial technology, which focuses on robotics and automation.
Ragsdale also noted their Then and Now – Throwback Thursday posts that they have begun adding to the Northeast Arkansas Career and Technical Center Facebook page, which helps showcase some of their alumni and history.
“That’s where the then and now came into play,” she said. “That’s what we want, we want to hear that story because we all are seeing are photographs of people having a great time. We want to know what the great time was about. Tell us,” Ragsdale laughed.
Ragsdale said even NEACTC’S sister schools, also known as sending schools, have changed.
NEACTC has 13 sending schools across NEA including, Bay, Brookland, Buffalo Island Central, Greene County Tech, Harrisburg, Hoxie, Jonesboro, Nettleton, Paragould, Riverside, Trumann, Valley View, Walnut Ridge, and Westside, as well as home schooled students.
“A lot of things have changed and but even though through the changes, we’re still moving forward,” Ragsdale said. “I think with all the competitions and all of our students finding jobs right out of high school or discovering their niche in society, that’s what we’re here for and we’re still doing it. So that’s why we want to invite everyone just to say, ‘Hey, remember us?’”
The event is connected to NEACTC’s Tech Connect, which is typically where students will meet with local businesses in the industry they’re studying.
However, this one is a little different, Ragsdale said, noting that NEACTC is inviting the entire community and will be displaying artifacts from the previous decades outside of the classrooms for each program, including old equipment, tools and photographs. There will also be an area for the programs that are no longer available, such as commercial art.
At the end of each table, there will be a student to explain to evolution of the different classes to tour groups,
“Every 15 minutes we’re going to have a tour that goes into each classroom and see what’s new and what’s not new, because there’s still some equipment out there floating around,” Ragsdale said. “That’s the unique part of this Tech Connect, the Then and Now of it.”
Ragsdale also noted NEACTC Director Todd Rhoades had said that the school was a hidden gem when he first started.
“He said, ‘It’s like this diamond in the rough situation’,” she recalled. “Now, we want to make sure everyone knows that we are still here and we’re not going away. We are going to continue the legacy and maybe a legacy even stronger.”
To RSVP, click here.