Sharon Longan, director of Nichols Career Center, "never would have guessed in a million years" her career would have unfolded the way it has.
Longan will retire in June after a 30-year career in education - including 18 years with Jefferson City Public Schools and seven years as the director of Nichols.
She started out as a teacher and then a guidance counselor in California, Missouri. "That was really my first toe in the water" of understanding what's available through career and technical education, she said.
She then was a guidance counselor at Nichols, an assistant principal for two years at Jefferson City High school, and for a year was principal at JCHS and director at Nichols.
She grew up in the K-8 district of Clarksburg, but said California is her hometown.
Her grandmother was a teacher, and the two of them would always play school; "I always knew I wanted to be a teacher," Longan said.
"At the end of the day, people want to be here," she said of what she enjoys about Nichols; she does miss her classroom days.
Longan said she's proud of integrating math and literacy into Nichols' curriculum, and expanding internship opportunities - "that's grown exponentially over the past few years."
She's also proud of the career center's graduation and attendance rates, and the industry-recognized credentials that are available to students.
However, she gives most of the credit for accomplishments to others: "I'm just a piece of a much bigger mission and vision," she said, adding Nichols gets good students from the career center's 11 sending schools and "we just hope we're sending them back a little bit better."
"I just carry the keys," she said.
She also credits good mentorship in her career, and hoped she's paid it forward. She specifically cited Norman Rohrbach as a mentor of hers, who was the California High School principal from 1994-2003.
Longan said she goes back to conversations with him a lot in her head, especially ones about how to connect with students and parents.
She said she's retiring to care for her mother and father-in-law; "I don't have time to work full-time" and make caring for them a priority.
Longan's family is also a farming family, so that will keep her busy, too. Her husband, Lee, is an agriculture teacher at California High School, and her son and daughter also work in agriculture.
She and Lee live on a farm between Jefferson City and California that's been in the family for at least a century, and they raise cattle while also growing corn, soybeans and hay.
"My husband thinks I'm going to be a farmhand," she said, but she wants better equipment first.