Canadian Valley Technology Center recognized for excellence

The Gold Star program recognizes technology center districts that have met criteria demonstrating excellence in terms of completion rate, placement rate, capacity and others.

Gold Star recognition is for one year. Canadian Valley has received the honor 10 times, including two consecutive years and three of the past four years.

Canadian Valley serves mostly Canadian and Grady counties in central Oklahoma.

The publicly funded school was established as Vocational Technical Area School No. 6 in 1968. The term “Canadian Valley” was added by the school's original board of education to reflect the area from which students would be coming to the school, said Marvin Novak, the school's first board president.

Canadian Valley held its first classes in August 1970, once buildings were completed in El Reno and Chickasha. A third campus was added just south of Yukon in August 2008 to accommodate robust growth in the area.

Historically, Oklahomans have referred to these area schools with the abbreviated term “vo-tech.” The school's official name was changed in 1999 to Canadian Valley Technology Center, reflecting a national branding shift.