Leaning back in his chair behind his wooden desk, James Stidham tells a joke he says he heard years ago, but that seems utterly appropriate today.
“Joke that went around one time, doctor had a plumber come fix his commode, the plumber fixed it, gave the doctor the bill,” Stidham paused for a minute. “The doctor looked at the bill and said, ‘Man I don’t make this kind of money and I’m a doctor!’
“The plumber said, ‘I didn’t make that kind of money when I was a doctor either.'”
With health care and the job market part of seemingly endless debate, it would be easy to assume Stidham was ready to set off on a political tangent. Instead he simply finished laughing and pointed out the obvious.
“People are going to pay to get their toilets fixed,” he said.
Stidham is the director for the Millsaps Career and Technical Center at Starkville High School, and was recognized last week at the Mississippi Department of Education conference for his 30 years of service.
As the longest serving career and technical director in the state, Stidham has worked diligently as the director in Starkville for 25 years, maintaining one of the most innovative, respected centers in Mississippi.
At one time, there were five other directors at career and technical centers across the state that had served as assistant directors under Stidham.
Despite his and his center’s acclaim, Stidham claims to only be really good at one thing.
“I think, if I individually am good at anything in particular, it is selecting faculty and staff. We consider ourselves the Millsaps family; we really work together over here,” Stidham said. “I haven’t done a whole lot, it’s the 70 people I selected. That’s the only thing I will take credit for is who is here.”
Under Stidham’s guidance, the Millsaps Career and Technical Center has piloted several programs, including STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), a required freshman program exposing students to the daily uses of the subjects, and more recently launched a career exploration program, unique to the state.
The career exploration program, a brainchild of Stidham, is also required for freshman, and lets the students choose six classes out of ten offered at the center, a diverse array of topics from robotics to health sciences.
“They come the first day and we take them on a tour of the whole center, to every class, then they list, one through 10, what they’d like to be in, and we try to put them in their top six choices,” Stidham said.
The students attend each program for three weeks and by the end of the semester, if the program serves it purpose, the students have gotten at least an idea of what they might be interested in pursuing as a career.
“We are hopefully helping them to make career choices. They may go into health sciences and at the end of three weeks they decide they don’t want to be a doctor. Because they didn’t realize it was going to take this many years and this much money,” he said. “Ideally, it helps decide what they want to do, but also what they don’t want to do, and that’s OK, too. We have served a purpose if we accomplish either one of those.”
Students who take classes at the center are still encouraged pursue a higher education after high school, Stidham said, whether that is a trade school, a junior college or a four-year university
“At the end of the day, we want them to be able to get a job,” he said. “If you can go lay brick, fix a car, a toilet, even a computer, you can get a job, and you don’t need a degree to do it.”
He pointed to some impressive statistics.
“Today, 50 percent of high school grads won’t go to college. Only half of the 50 percent will graduate from college in four years. That means 75 percent of original students will not get a degree. In actuality, though, only about 18 percent of jobs in the United States require a four year degree,” Stidham said.
Stidham, who has been married for 39 years, has two children and came to Starkville after holding positions in Webster County, where he was the first director for their vocational center, and Chickasaw County where he was a principal and coach. He said he cannot thank the city of Starkville enough for the support it has shown, especially for a career and technical center, and especially in a college town.
He recalled once when former superintendent Larry Box asked Stidham where he saw himself in five years. Stidham, who was already the director of the center, told Box he saw himself in the same exact place. Stidham said his ambition was to make the Millsaps Center the best in the state.
Now, though his ambition is still the same, his answer is different.
“I’ll be retired in five years, I don’t have a set date, though,” Stidham said. “I’m just taking it day by day, I have a small farm and seven grandkids. I am definitely looking forward to spending a lot of time with them, but I want to make sure I am ready to retire. I really still love doing this.”
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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