New Ezzell High School celebrates Its first graduate
Ezzell School officials did something recently that the school hadn’t done in more than eight decades, when they handed a high school diploma to their very first graduating senior of the modern millennium.
Their lone graduate — and admittedly, their full Class of 2023 — was none other than Blake Reed, 18, the son of Jennifer and Justin Kremling of Sweet Home, who by doubling up on a few credits this year thanks to the school’s individualized curriculum plans for each student, was able graduate ahead of schedule.
He plans to attend the Tulsa Welding School & Technology Center in Houston, something that Ezzell superintendent Lisa Berckenhoff said she attributed largely to the influence of new high school’s ag teacher, Robert Washington, who came out of retirement to help get the program started up over in Ezzell.
Turns out, they couldn’t have picked a better first ag teacher, or for that matter, a better first graduate for their modern high school offerings, Berckenhoff said.
Blake was literally the poster child for the type of student she had in mind when she designed its curriculum just last summer, and Mr. Washington was the type of teacher who was more than capable of helping her see that vision to reality.
Not your typical graduate
Blake Reed’s the type of fellow everybody likes to have on their friends list. Because when stuff breaks—as it most assuredly will, sooner or later—Blake’s the guy who can probably get it righted again
Assuming you haven’t torn it too badly, of course. But even then, he’s something of a miracle worker in a pinch, or so we’re told. Not surprising, those are skills he came by honestly, doing some good old fashioned hard work, right alongside his grand dad, who owns a business running heavy equipment and moving entire houses for a fee.
Blake had been an Ezzell student for most of his formative years. Like many before him, before the school opened its high school offerings last fall, he parted ways at the end of eighth grade and headed off to larger district
While some of his fellow classmates at the larger school might wile away entire weekends, watching silly cat videos on their phones or partnering up with some kid out of New Zealand to go game questing online, Blake was busy with his grandpa, learning how to run backhoes and bulldozers and drive an 18-wheeler rig. Or, when necessity called, fire up a welding torch and make something useful, or better still, make a quick repair so they could finish the job they were working on quicker.
His motivations were simple enough. The pay was something outstanding, especially if you showed any manner of skill at it. And with Blake, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who took to it any better. He’s a natural when it comes to the handson stuff.
What he didn’t put much stock in was all the “wherefore art thous” from his English classes, or the miles of math problems that used almost as much of the alphabet as that Shakespeare play did.
Besides, most who were best at that sort of thing couldn’t tell an SAE wrench from their elbow, and he’d already picked up enough working that he knew he’d be the sort of guy they’d call on whenever something broke. What’s more, he could pretty much name his price for said service, and most would happily pay it
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that him spending all weekend flipping pages to some book, just to pass some test that really meant little to him, whereas spending a few hours with Grandpa could earn enough to put four new tires on his truck. The answer seemed obvious.
It’s why Blake seriously pondered going to work full-time versus sticking it out at school.
That’s when his folks heard about Ezzell offering a new high school program. Berckenhoff said she knew he wanted to get out of school early and was more than capable of doing most anything he put his mind to
That, he did, even doubling up on a few required classes so that he might get out that much faster. When May rolled around he was passing everything and was even ahead of schedule with the self paced classes with enough credits to graduate.
In a formal ceremony held the evening of Thursday, May 18, at the Ezzell School, with family members and friends in attendance, he crossed their stage an official Ezzell High School graduate. It was the first diploma granted by the school since before most folks had ever heard of a place called Pearl Harbor.
Plus, for a fellow set on quitting school just one year prior, Blake was now making plans to advance his education even more at a Houston welding school, something Berckenhoff said she owed entirely to the school’s new ag program and its teacher.
“Blake was precisely the type of student our program was created for,” she said. “That he wound up being our initial graduate was even better. It’s a success story all the way around, both for him and us.”
In this, the first year of Ezzell offering high school curriculum since before the second World War, Berckenhoff says that ag teacher Robert Washington was instrumental in helping secure the school’s first FFA charter, a charter which will be finalized at the Texas FFA convention taking place July 10-14 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas.
He was equally instrumental in getting the Ezzell FFA competition welders ready, graduating senior Blake Reed among them. He not only helped them secure their basic welding certifications, but he also helped them start the FFA competition season with a first-place finish in district. They went on to finish in seventh place, overall, in the area rounds of competition. A fantastic showing for any school’s first-year program.
“It’s not just any school that can hang up a first-place banner the same year they organized their charter,” Berckenhoff said. “We even have a solid junior FFA program in place with the fifth through seventh graders to make sure the program stays strong for many years to come. We are so very proud of all that our students have accomplished, but we couldn’t have done it without Mr. Washington.”
Washington retired recently with more than 35 years of teaching experience in a larger district. But as many longtime teachers soon discover, not long after they decide to hang it up, he missed working with the kids, day in and day out. So, when Berckenhoff advertised a year ago for people to fill the new high school offerings at Ezzell, the two-days-a week block schedule she offered Washington as a teaching assignment proved too good to pass up
The rest, as they say, has been history in the making. It’s just one of the reasons Berckenhoff says she plans to go before her board in June with final plans to build the school’s first ag shop and CTE classrooms, as well as plans to expand their four-day high school class schedule to the rest of grades offered in Ezzell.
The savings alone from not operating on Day 5 are quite substantial, Berckenhoff says, just in terms of fuel costs for school buses alone. Despite being the smallest of three country schools available to students in Lavaca County, Ezzell ISD holds one of the largest land masses of all the county’s school districts.
Despite that massive geography, however, their numbers stayed small through the years because few people reside in those areas. Berckenhoff said she needed at least 10 high school students to make it a financially feasible option last year. She got 15. And despite some ups and downs during the school year, they finished the 2022- 23 school year with just 111 students, all grades combined.
She said she’s gotten commitments from parents that could mean as many as 120 students next school year, with 23 of those being high school students. Still, their real success lies in staying small, she says.
Ultimately, the number of days they attend will be up to the school’s board of trustees to decide, Berckenhoff said. That, too, is set for their June meeting agenda
Until then, Berckenhoff said she plans to spend a few days enjoying some of the past year’s successes.
“While we’ll indeed have a few college-bound students here in Ezzell, our program was designed for kids like Blake, who weren’t big on school to begin with,” she said. “We wanted to develop those things our kids were already good at and help them develop those into something that could become a successful career. That’s precisely what Blake has done, and I’m pretty certain he’ll probably out earn us all at some point real soon. We couldn’t be happier for him when he does because just seeing our kids succeed is our real reward.”
