Ask people who grew up in Yoakum and you’ll hear a version of the same thing: this is a town that raises good people. What it hasn’t always been able to promise them is a reason to stay.
For years the pattern held. A kid works hard, crosses the graduation stage at the high school, and then runs into the question every small town knows by heart. What now? Too often the answer was somewhere else. College looked like a door that opened out of town and rarely swung back in.
That’s the pattern a new partnership is setting out to break.
Yoakum has been chosen as one of just three communities in Texas for a four-year rural education initiative led by The Texas A&M University System. Texas A&M University-Victoria will serve as the town’s partner, working alongside the Yoakum Independent School District, the City of Yoakum, the Yoakum Economic Development Corporation, and the Yoakum Area Chamber of Commerce. It’s part of a statewide effort, run through the university’s LevelUp Texas program and the Texas Rural Education Collaborative, to help rural students see that college and a real career aren’t things that only happen somewhere else.
Superintendent Tom Kelley has watched the doubt take hold in his own classrooms.
“Every year we’ve got kids in these classrooms who could do just about anything, and half the battle is convincing them of it,” Kelley said. “They think college is for somebody else, or that you have to leave Yoakum to make something of yourself. This partnership goes right at that.”
The work, announced during the school district’s convocation, will run for four years and reach students long before they’re seniors weighing their options. A&M-Victoria’s people will be in Yoakum’s schools and alongside its families, not visiting once and moving on.
Mayor Carl O’Neill has seen enough graduations to know what’s at stake.
“I’ve watched a lot of Yoakum kids cross that graduation stage and wonder what comes next,” O’Neill said. “Too many of them figured college wasn’t for people like us, or wasn’t for a town this size. That’s what this partnership changes. Our kids can see a real path to college and a career, and know they can build a life here when they’re done.”
For families, it changes a hard piece of math. For a long time, keeping a kid close to home and giving that kid every opportunity felt like two separate choices. This partnership is built so parents don’t have to pick between them. A Yoakum student can aim as high as anyone, anywhere, and chase it from right here, with a real path to college and a career that doesn’t start by leaving.
For the university, the pitch is simple: the talent is already here.
“Our region is rich with bright young people who have so much potential,” said Dr. Christian Hardigree, president of Texas A&M University-Victoria. “We don’t want any student to feel like they can’t reach for their dreams.”
For the Yoakum Economic Development Corporation, this is also the start of a longer relationship, and a sign of where the university is heading.
“YEDC is extremely excited about Texas A&M-Victoria taking an interest in Yoakum,” said Layne Brandt, who chairs the corporation’s board. “Having a strong connection with them will pay dividends for Yoakum as the university refocuses to be a bigger player in our region.”
If it works, the payoff won’t show up all at once. It shows up years from now, in the kid who leaves for a degree and comes back to open a business, coach a team, or teach in the same halls she walked as a student. In Yoakum, that’s the whole idea.
About the Texas Rural Education Collaborative (TREC)
TREC is an initiative of The Texas A&M University System designed to strengthen the college-going pipeline for students in rural Texas communities. Through place-based partnerships, it connects universities, school districts, and community partners around early college and career awareness, student readiness, teacher quality, and school leadership. TREC operates through three regional campuses: East Texas A&M University, Texas A&M University-Texarkana, and Texas A&M University-Victoria.
About LevelUp Texas
LevelUp Texas, created by Texas A&M University’s Office for Youth Engagement, helps students and families, beginning as early as elementary school, explore college and career opportunities through early exposure, hands-on learning, and family resources.
Media Contact
Genora C. Young, PCED, BREP
Executive Director
Yoakum Economic Development Corporation
215A West Grand Avenue
P.O. Box 738
Yoakum, Texas 77995
(361) 407-2655
gyoung@yoakumtx.gov
