New era in technology

Mid-America Technology Center’s newly named superintendent Mike Eubank is home-grown, hailing from Lindsay.

He started and ended his secondary education in the Lindsay Public Schools system graduating in 1986.

Upon his high school graduation, Eubank chose to continue his education at East Central University in Ada, where he graduated with a BS in Industrial Engineering Technology with Standard Teacher Certification.

Eubank’s next stop was right back at Lindsay High School, where he was employed as a long-term substitute teacher for a teacher who was deployed in Desert Storm.

After his first venture into teaching, Eubank took a break from the world of education working at Halliburton, in Duncan, while also working nights and weekends for Albin Enterprise. Next, he took a civil engineering job working for Red River Civil Engineering, another Duncan based business.

He felt both of the previous jobs were never his calling, and he jumped back into education by accepting a teaching position at Ninnekah Public Schools, where he was tasked with creating a new Tech Ed program for grades 6-12.

All of Eubank’s previous jobs were short-lived, but in 1993 he joined the faculty at MATC and has never looked back.

Eubank was hired as a teacher to transform the Drafting program into a Computer Aided Design and Drafting (CADD) program in order for MATC’s students to be prepared for the changes occurring in business and industry. He taught the CADD program for 15 years, making it one of the leading CADD programs in the CareerTech system.

In 2001, Eubank was one of the first five Oklahoma CareerTech teachers to achieve National Board Certification status. Upon completion of the 18-month process, a $5,000 a year bonus was awarded for the next 10 years. He used this bonus to finance his graduate degree in school administration and in 2008 was promoted to principal.

Eubank held the position as principal for seven years and in 2015 he was promoted to MATC’s Director of Full-Time Programs. While in these positions, Eubank rebuilt student recruiting and on-boarding processes and introduced multiple teacher induction and training programs.

In 2017, he was afforded the opportunity to become the assistant superintendent, a role he readily accepted in order to propel MATC’s continued efforts to excellence in education. But alas, that was not to be the last step in Eubank’s MATC journey.

In a surprise announcement in August, long-time superintendent Dusty Ricks announced his retirement, spurring Eubank to apply for the position of superintendent, and at a special board of education meeting, he was named MATC Superintendent effective October 1.

In addition to meeting the educational requirements of a superintendent, Eubank has been preparing in many other aspects. He is a graduate of TechCAP IV, Tulsa Model TLE trainer, TechCent$ graduate, a Carl Perkins V presenter, completed Title IX Coordinator Training, was awarded the 2015 Southern Region Education Board Outstanding School Leader Award, and a sought-out presenter at SREB Tech Centers That Work conferences.

Eubank and his wife, Shelly, have three children, McKenna and Kellar, both MATC graduates, and Lincoln, a sophomore at Purcell High School.