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Show Local leaders attend conference Association is a national organization organiza-tion for professional vocational educators. It is active in providing professional development for its members and is an effective lobbying lobby-ing group nationally for vocational education funding and programs. Kay Clayton, from Alexandria, Va. and a member of the AVA, discussed the future of the work force and what needed to be done to meet the educational challenges required re-quired for the training of workers. "By the year 2000 we will see 20,000,000 new jobs. Vocational education has a major role in preparing people for the jobs available in the future," she commented. com-mented. Clayton explained that employment employ-ment will be primarily available in service industries comprising 77 percent of the work force, versus 23 percent in the goods-producing industry. in-dustry. She said the percentage difference differ-ence is a very important implication as students are prepared in various areas of employment Clayton also noted that the vocational educators must be concerned not only with training new workers but with retraining as well. Approximately 14 percent of present workers need to be retrained every year. Dr. James Hansen, South Dakota State Secretary of Education and Cultural Affairs, told the group that they were in a critical position to create better educational opportunities oppor-tunities for the nation. He said it is a challenging time for the vocational education leaders and it's their opportunity op-portunity to demonstrate the important impor-tant role vocational education plays. Vocational education leaders from Utah and 15 other states gathered in Rapid City, S.D. recently re-cently for the Region 5 Vocational Association conference. The leadership convention hosted presenters from across the nation to look at the future of vocational education edu-cation and the role it will play in training the work force needed by businesses and industries in the United States. The leaders also discussed the educational agenda adopted by the Bush administration and state governments and legislation issues. The conference provided training for officer and executive directors of state organizations. Walt Ulrich, executive director for UVA, and Lynn Trenbeath, president of the Utah Vocational Association, attended at-tended the conference representing Davis County as well as the Utah state organization. Both Trenbeath and Ulrich are members of Region Five committees com-mittees whose goal is to help define and improve the image of vocational voca-tional education. The American Vocational |