{"id":126484,"date":"2026-04-27T10:45:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T16:45:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-middle-school-career-fair-teaches-students-about-array-of-careers\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T10:56:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T16:56:14","slug":"cortez-middle-school-career-fair-teaches-students-about-array-of-careers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-middle-school-career-fair-teaches-students-about-array-of-careers\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez Middle School Career Fair teaches students about array of careers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Students
Students heard from community members about their career over the course of the three-day Career Fair. (Courtesy of Morgan Nichols)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Cortez Middle School hosted its annual eighth-grade career fair in early April, drawing 107 students to learn from roughly 30 community members about a wide range of professions.<\/p>\n

The three-day event, held during the first few weeks of April in coordination with CMAS standardized testing, encouraged students to explore career paths they may not have previously considered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal of the career fair is to encourage students to start thinking about their future and what they might want, and also opening their eyes to many different options beyond what they probably think is available,\u201d eighth-grade counselor Morgan Nichols told The Journal.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Career Fair is held for eighth graders each year in conjunction with CMAS testing. (Courtesy of Morgan Nichols)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Nichols highlighted several presenters, including arborist Roman Jefferson of Legacy Tree; graphic designer Brooklynne Peterson of KFR Graphics; pack raft designer and design engineer Dustin Partridge of Alpacka Raft; real estate agent and local business owner Tel Hamilton; and tattoo artist Mariah Robson, owner of Little Miss Ink.<\/p>\n

Other participants included firefighters, a cosmetologist, a youth programs coordinator, a scientist, a physical therapist, ranchers, a farmer, a registered nurse, a physician assistant, a training manager and an air medical helicopter crew that landed on the school field. Students also learned from professionals in construction trades, photography and automotive services.<\/p>\n

Nichols said firefighters and the air medical team were consistently popular, while the tattoo artist also generated significant excitement among students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

30 people introduced students to professions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":126485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5794,5735],"tags":[21,147,28,60,29,6419],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-126484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-cortez-middle-school","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-tj-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126484"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126489,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126484\/revisions\/126489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126484"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=126484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}