By Joe O’Leary, The Mountain Times
For quite a while, there was a stigma that floated around in American high schools; college should be the standard path for students after they graduate. In the past few years, however, things have been shifting quite a bit. Entering trades or taking a gap year have always been options for students, but they certainly have never been as widely presented and encouraged as they are today. Sandy High School is no exception to this trend, boasting a solid selection of CTE courses. Over the years, these programs, particularly the manufacturing and automotive classes, have jump-started various young students into careers through teacher/school connections and years of attentiveness on the part of the graduates.
At halftime of SHS’s football game on October 10, the program received an invaluable boost, a 2023 Ford Explorer. Two years ago, Dick Hannah purchased the Ford and Chevrolet dealerships in Sandy. In the time since, the dealership has begun working alongside the automotive program at SHS.
“We suddenly realized that the stuff they were working on was old. It wasn’t up to date. There were a lot of things that needed to be changed. As far as tools, diagnostic equipment, all the stuff they use. But the biggest need was a vehicle,” Dick Hannah’s general manager Tony Hornbck explained. As vehicles have changed so rapidly in the past few decades, it cannot be underplayed how vital a modern vehicle is in jumpstarting the knowledge of students with the potential to join the automotive field some day. The true beauty of the vehicle donation is that, not only does it help SHS, it’s also an investment for Dick Hannah, which pulls a fair amount of new workers from the school.
“I have two people from the 2023 class working for me right now. It helps, as people retire to have new workers ready,” Hornback said. The vehicle, which had an error in production Ford deemed unsolvable, was donated from the auto manufacturing company itself to Dick Hannah, with the intention of being passed on to the high school. And when the moment of Hornback passing the keys to SHS principal Sarah Dorn came, it was a break of jubilation in an already joyous night that oversaw a 61-21 blowout by the Pioneers over rival Gresham.
“Since I’ve been here we haven’t had a donation like this. This will benefit every single student in our automotive program. And not only our automotive program, but our entire CTE program,” Dorn said. All things considered, the donation shows that SHS is serious about being among the best with regard to student resources, and that the idea of a community as a collective looking out for what matters is a vital part of Sandy’s culture. Even the hundreds of SHS students that Dick Hannah doesn’t pull into their shop, kids who go in and out of the automotive program every year, benefit.
“What our students are learning in this program allows them to enter Mt. Hood [Community College] and their program there and already be ahead, just because they have something like this [car],” Dorn said.