Photo: Kneehill County Transportation Supervisor Richard Thiessen with his favorite million-dollar CAT road grader and Three Hills School grade ten students Colson Colhoun and Mason Paget, both 15 and from Swalwell, a hamlet twenty-four kilometers south of Three Hills. They participated in Try a Trade Day, an event organized by Community Futures Wild Rose for high school students to collect information and pose career opportunity questions. Rural Alberta Report/David Nadeau, Three Hills         

High school for me was neither a piece of cake nor a cake walk.

How about despondency pie with a side dish of royal pain?

Academically, we were different planets—me, the insecure creative words kid, and “Them”, my stolid Toronto high school with a lofty reputation to maintain and a determination to make incompetent David science and math competent. We both failed. Little wonder I dropped out, never to return.

Fast forward nearly six decades to a late September afternoon in Three Hills. That's me, Mr. Whitehair with a big black camera and open notepad, scoping out Try a Trade Day in a spacious Three Hills arena upstairs meeting room September 24.

This multi-hour function, engineered by Community Futures Wild Rose (Strathmore), attracted colleges, businesses, entrepreneurs, and encouragers to give students opportunities to take what might be a serious first step to thinking of life and work beyond grade 12.

And over there. Me again, scanning table after table of opportunities and career information, watching scores of area high schoolers snagging candies, free pens, flyers, trinkets, brochures, booklets, and being exposed to career opportunities which did not exist when I was in high school with one foot half out the door.

Downstairs, following a bunch of guys to a parking lot across the street. A guy place. A peace officer's patrol vehicle with lights flashing and two sparkling pieces of Kneehill County equipment, what looked like world's biggest CAT road grader and my first chance to stand beside a huge winter-ready snowplow/sander.

This was as much a talk-a-lot day as it was a hands-on day. Upstairs in the arena meeting room, you could ask Bigfoot Truck Repair owner (36 years!) Ken Cunningham about mechanics, one RN about medicine, another RN about how to put a needle into a bone, and still another RN about becoming an LPN. And someone else about apprenticeships, what's up for me at IGA, how about the town's public works department, a helpful man who knows everything about internships, and what attending Bible college could do for my career path.

The then-and-now movie of my life was nearing the credits. I looked, but I didn't see a line for King of Green Envy. I could have easily filled that role as a kneejerk reaction to the unbelievable bounty of information, advice, direction, and choices those September students had.

Overwhelming? Maybe. No Oscar for me, but two nice runner-up prizes: "These kids are clueless about how well off they are . . . what a great day to learn" and "I'm sure glad my lights came on and I did go back to school. College, no less. I've never looked back."