By Zoey Nichols, Kaydee Lefler and Latasha Brown

South Rowan High School

When South Rowan High School career coach Brad Holda was in high school, he never had many opportunities to actually figure out the question everyone asks high schoolers: What do you want to be when you grow up?

So he made it his mission to provide high schoolers with as many options as possible to figure this out. Holda has teamed with Blaire Goodale, career development coordinator, and teachers such as Brad Hamrick and Scott Vanderslice to create opportunities for students, like us, to answer this age-old question.

One of these opportunities is the newly invented “Lunch and Learn.”

Lunch and Learns have taken over at South Rowan High as the staff works to provide snacks and a learning opportunity for hungry students dying to answer this difficult question.

There have been four Lunch and Learns up to this point: nursing, video game development/entrepreneurship, cosmetology and, the latest, veterinarian. South was fortunate to have well-known and respected veterinarian Dr. Rebekah Julian from Lazy 5 Vets in Salisbury to share her knowledge with us.

She talked about where she is from and how she became interested in becoming a veterinarian. When Julian asked how many students actually want to be a veterinarian, many raised their hands showing interest, staying engaged and sharing her passion.

She also discussed things students could be doing now to help them in the future. Julian even showed some of her previous animal cases.

Students were so engaged that several of them stayed after the program to ask Julian for additional advice on becoming a veterinarian.

Now, we know what you’re thinking: “I wish I could be a student at South Rowan to actually see these Lunch and Learns live.”

We have good news for you: going forward, each Lunch and Learn will be recorded and put on the Lunch and Learn YouTube channel as we will follow all the action live and bring these stories to a newspaper near you through a shared link.

The next installment will be with Blair Phillips Photography on Jan. 30. We can’t wait for you to learn with us.