By Victoria Rojas
On Tuesday April 5, Senator Charles Grassley visited MMCRU High School to talk to the high school industrial technology teacher Matt Hansen. He talked to a couple of students as well and asked them questions about the program.
Hansen said that Senator Grassley reached out to the program as part of his 99 county tour. After hearing about our program from Senator Joni Ernst. Grassley had been trying to find a date to come but there was never a right time because of covid and he canceled most of the dates. The senator is very advanced on the skills trade initiative and heard about the success that they had through the Iowa Governor’s STEM BEST Award that they won in 2020 .
According to Hansen, he has continuously advocated for a strong skills trade workforce here in Iowa and also wanted to see what our communities are doing to fill the need for skilled tradesmen in our area. They simply talked about the program and what it was like when he first started teaching vs. where it is now and the direction we are taking it. There were also other discussions that were regarding the need to support small schools like ours as not all great programs are in the cities.
What Hansen enjoyed the most was that Senator Grassley asked to speak to the students in our advanced cabinet making program. He sat with some of the students including Gunner Grage, Brenin Stodden, Kirsten Letche, Taylor Harpenau, and Kenzie Meyer so he could simply talk about his experience in high school shop back in the 1950’s and to get an idea what it’s like to take the industrial trades classes here at MMCRU.