WKCTC will hold commencement at The Carson Center December 16
Paducah, KY (11/14/2024) — West Kentucky Community and Technical College (WKCTC) will honor 956 candidates for graduation during its fall commencement December 16 at The Carson Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Paducah.
Mayfield Mayor Kathy O'nan will be the featured speaker at the ceremony, which will be held at 7 p.m. Trista Shankle of Paducah will be the student speaker.
Kathy Stewart O'Nan has served as the Mayor of the City of Mayfield since January 2019, and until the night of December 10, 2021, the most difficult issue that she had faced was guiding the city through the COVID 19 pandemic. But on that evening an EF-4 tornado swept through the city leaving hundreds of citizens homeless, demolishing the entirety of the downtown central business district including every city government building, and claiming the lives of twenty-four within Graves County. Although no training exists to prepare one to lead a city through a crisis such as this, Mayor O'Nan is confident that, with time and the extraordinary efforts by the strong people of Mayfield, her city will not only recover, but will emerge a better place in which to live, work, and raise a family.
Prior to serving as mayor, Ms. O'Nan taught US History and served as the Chairman of the Social Studies Department at Mayfield High School for over twenty years and during that time served on the Mayfield City Council for sixteen years. She moved as a newly-wed bride from Sturgis, Kentucky, to Mayfield in 1976, and chose to remain there to raise her two daughters following the death of her husband in 1987. She is a graduate of Lambuth University, Jackson, Tennessee, and received a master's degree from Murray State University. She is a past-president of the Lambuth University Alumni Association and also of the Graves County Public Library Board of Trustees. She currently serves on the Kentucky League of Cities Executive Board of Directors, the Graves County Economic Development Board of Directors, the Purchase Area Development District Board of Directors, and is a member of the First United Methodist Church where she was the Children's Choir Director for forty-two years. In 2022 she was recognized as a Notable Woman in Kentucky Politics and Government and has received the following awards : 2022 Mayfield - Graves County Chamber of Commerce Mary Propes Outstanding Woman in Business; 2023 Small Business Administration Phoenix Award for Outstanding Contribution to Disaster Recovery for a Public Official; 2023 Kentucky League of Cities RISE Award; 2024 Tommy Longo Disaster Leadership Award, LeadersLink.
Student speaker Trista Shankle, who has a passion for helping others, has herself overcome adversity and unforseen obstacles in pursuit of her Physical Therapist Assistant degree.
"I was fresh out of highschool when I originally started WKCTC. I had no earthly idea what I wanted to do. I kind of dipped my feet in the water here and there, and ended up finding out I was pregnant and withdrew from all of my courses." With the pressure of having a child on the way and withdrawling from college, Shankle had to face yet another challenge when her daughter was born.
"I started back at WKCTC after I had just delivered my daughter, she had been in extensive physical therapy for months. When she was almost a year old, she wasn't sitting up, not crawling. We found an outpatient therapy place that worked with her extensivley and in a months time she was sitting up and crawling."
Shankle enrolled in classes to come back the next day to pursue her degree in Physical Therapy. The experience she went through with her baby inspired her to want to help other families, liked they helped her daughter.
"Don't ever be afraid to take the step that could change your life. You may be scared now, but that step you're scared to take could open the doorway to a whole new life for you."