Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Top Juniors And Seniors Recognized At Banquet

Gurdon's top 10 juniors and seniors were given some "facts of life" at the Rotary Banquet Thursday, April 29.

These facts of life had nothing to do with the birds and bees, but the economic future of those students who will graduate this year and next.

Clayton Franklin, the keynote speaker at the event, told the students half of the graduates will not go to college and half of those who go won't graduate.

Regardless, he said, all of them will have to get jobs in order to support themselves.

"You need to think about what you want to do for the rest of your lives," he said. "You have to have a job to try and make a living for you and your family.

"The world is changing fast. Downsizing and outsourcing are more and more common. A lot of jobs are going to Mexico for cheap labor."

Franklin said the trend used to be jobs coming to the South from the North because labor was cheaper in the southern states. However, with the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), jobs are heading further south for even cheaper labor.

In Mexico, now, he said, the economy is growing as U.S. plants continue moving there. "It's something we can't control," he continued. "It's a fact of life.'

Still, Franklin said, the U.S. economy continues to grow, with more than eight million new jobs having been created in the past five years.

But, the vast majority of these jobs are from small companies with fewer than 50 employees. "This calls for a different kind of employee," he said. "They need different skills and need to be able to do several different things."

Since the 1980s, he said, the number of businesses with single owners has doubled, and will likely triple before the end of this decade.

Because of this, the employees need more knowledge and must be able to change to meet the demands of the job market and be adaptable.

Today's small companies have the brainpower General Motors has because of technology. They have access to information and data they need.

Franklin said the Arkansas Department of Education did a survey to find out what small companies need their employees to be able to do. Some 97 percent said their workers would need special technical skills to do the jobs.

However, the skills required were different for all the companies involved in the survey. This, he said, posed another dilemma.

The solution, though, came from the companies themselves. All were looking for the same basic components in their workers.

These components include: having a good work ethic; being on time for work; being a team player; being drug free; having social and communication skills; being able to speak, do math and possession measuring skills.

With these basic abilities, the companies said, they can train an employee to do the job at hand.

Franklin said there are companies needing workers, but turning away applicants because they don't read well enough to do the job, spell poorly or can't do something as simple as read a tape measure.

The highlight of the evening, though was the recognition of the top 10 juniors and seniors, along with the presentation of the Rotary Scholarship, which went to Mandy Shaver.

The juniors were given certificates, while the seniors were presented with certificates and medallions.