A plea for help from a Fairbanks teacher

By Dean Shipley

Staff Writer

Ruth Budd was looking for a connection and at the Plain City Business Association meeting Wednesday morning she found it.

She teaches family consumer science (formerly known as home economics), which contains a career and mentor component at Fairbanks High School. She came to the business association meeting to seek help.

Ruth Budd, left, speaks Wednesday morning to the Plain City Business Association and asks for help from members to help her place students in job-shadowing situations.

A self-described non-traditional teacher, Budd wants her students to have the opportunity to “shadow” people in various businesses to learn if that is indeed the career for them. While she has placed 11 students for this semester, she is seeking help for the next.

“The goal is to place students in businesses to see what it would be like to work in the career of their choice,” she said. Those choices include everything from medicine to public relations.

Budd said her efforts have been apparently rebuffed by the local community. She’s been turned down hearing sentences such as “we don’t want a high school student here.”

Having come from teaching in an inner city school in Dayton, Budd said, “I’m not used to that. I thought doors would be open.”

Members of the association opened their pockets and purses to provide business cards to her as a way of opening things up.

Those cards brought a smile to her face and said, “I can see things open up.”

In addition to job shadowing, her students also need to fulfill 15 hours of community service and then submit a report. For the service, Budd wants her students to “go outside the box” and “step outside their comfort zone.”

The business association also heard a presentation by Devin Hamilton, publisher of the Plain City Advocate, The Madison Press and The Tribune. He felt the Advocate, which serves the Plain City area, is a better product than it was five years ago. He received some nods of approval.

He said the staff of the Advocate are dedicated to keeping it as relevant as possible and wants to be sure “we’re doing what we should be doing.”