By Angela Deines, KSDE staff

February is national Career and Technical Education month, a public awareness campaign hosted by the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) and sponsored by the National Association of Home Builders. The celebration shines a light on the accomplishments of CTE programs across the U.S., including Kansas. 

Some attendees of the annual CTE conference in Manhattan this week got the chance to tour Manhattan High School’s CTE program that includes courses in business, welding, journalism, architectural drafting and agriculture, to name a few.  

“We’re a big school with more than 2,000 students in the building,” said Chris Holborn, CTE coordinator at Manhattan High School for the past five years. “Some kids are really diving deep into areas but we’re also in an exploratory phase with some of our students. We try to give them options to find that field they want to go into or go to college for. We also have students who dabble in trying to figure out what they want to do. We try to serve all of those populations.” 

Working closely with local businesses, Holborn said Manhattan High School is able to offer a diverse range of CTE and work-based classes which include concurrent credit courses because of agreements with Manhattan Technical College and Kansas State University.  

Cole Parsons, who graduated from Manhattan High School in May, is now a freshman studying mechanical engineering at Kansas State University. He said the learning experiences and opportunities afforded by his high school’s CTE program, particularly the computer-aided design (CAD) classes, helped prepare him for his postsecondary pursuits.   

“It gave me a lot of experience with the tools and programs and that made taking the classes at the college level easier,” he said.  

While at Manhattan High, Parsons also competed in the state and national SkillsUSA competitions. During his junior year, he placed first in technical drafting at the state competition in Hutchinson but didn’t place at nationals in Atlanta. However, he took what he learned and during his senior year, Parsons placed first in state and won the gold medal in technical drafting at the national contest. 

“Knowing what I needed to do, over the next year I studied up,” he said when asked what motivated him to want to win gold at national SkillsUSA after not medaling the year before. “My motivation behind that is that I wanted to do my best. I try to do that in all the areas of my life.” 

While his current major is mechanical engineering, Parsons said he doesn’t have a particular post-graduation career path chosen at this time. However, with many interests outside of engineering, including music, Parsons said he’s going to use some of his early time in college to decide which direction he wants to take. He credits Manhattan High’s CTE program and his advisor, Randy Pushee, for showing him the possibilities in his future. But more importantly, he said, those experiences were made richer by getting to do them with his peers.   

“It’s great to have the opportunity to do these things but it’s awesome to work with other people with these interests,” Parsons said. “The human connection behind it all is pretty important.” 

Randy Pushee has been a CTE teacher at Manhattan High School for the past six years. Prior to that, he worked for the Riley County Police Department for 25 years, the last five years as the school’s resource officer. He said while he had a bachelor’s degree, he didn’t have a teaching license but was able to get one after completing the “Transition to Teaching” program at Fort Hays State University.  

Now, Pushee teaches an introduction to skilled trades, architectural drafting and mechanical engineering and computer-aided design (CAD) classes. He’s also the advisor for the state and national SkillsUSA competitions and represents the north central district on the SkillsUSA state board of directors.  

Pushee said he is driven to teach real world applications because of the “phenomenal kids” who are part of the CTE program at Manhattan High School. He said many of his students, like Parsons, take the initiative to succeed and take pride in getting prepared for the SkillsUSA contests.  

“I’m just a facilitator,” Pushee said. “I point them in the right direction. They connect with the competitions that this is the real world. It validates to them that they’re on the right path.” 

Copyright 2025 by Kansas State Department of Education