Rylan Geiler is changing oil on a diesel truck at Schmidt Ford when the filter comes off, and the old gasket doesn't. About 99% of the time, the gasket comes with the filter. This time it didn't. He didn't notice, reinstalled the filter, and oil started shooting out. Had to take the whole thing apart and do it right. He knows the story now. He won't make that mistake again.

That's the education you can't fully replicate in a classroom.

Rylan, Hayden Jones, and Brayden Harris are seniors at Salem Community High School doing co-op placements — two hours a day off-campus, working in real shops, learning from professionals. Rylan works at Schmidt Ford in Salem, mostly in the oil change bay, and sometimes he is pulled over to help with bigger jobs on the other side of the shop. Hayden works at Landers Towing and Collision on Mills Cart Road — bodywork, detailing, sweeping floors when things slow down. Brayden works at Route 50.

Their futures point in different directions, which makes their shared starting point interesting.

Rylan has a job waiting after graduation at a manufacturing company on Route 50 that makes equipment for commercial bakeries — machinery that cuts and processes bread. He'll be trained on-site as a machinist. He got the offer through an unusual chain: he's a junior volunteer firefighter at the Iuka Fire Department, and the captain there has been around for thirty or forty years and knew his name. When the company was looking, they went to the captain. "He said that I'd be willing to come and do the job."

The automotive co-op wasn't the direct path to machining — the skills are cousins, not twins — but Rylan knows the relationship is real. "Stuff that I've learned there has definitely helped with becoming one," he said.

He also has a two-generation co-op story running in his family. His grandfather was a parts salesman for 44 years and started in the Salem co-op program. His parents also went to the school. Now Rylan. "I kind of already knew the shop pretty well," he said, "so that very much helped."

He rates his confidence in his path at a six out of ten — not from doubt, but from financial realism. Starting wages are starting wages. He knows he'll need to be strict with his budget while the experience accumulates and the pay follows. He's thinking ahead.

Hayden is thinking ahead in a different way entirely. He ships to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, on June 22nd — Army, eight years, correctional officer. Basic and AIT are both at Leonard Wood, so there's no break between them, just two days with family at the graduation ceremony and then right back into it. "I'll know my way around the base," he said.

He's fully colorblind — not red-green, but entirely. "I know the grass is green and the sky is blue and the sun is yellow, but that's just what I've been told since I was a kid. I just don't know what they look like. I can tell when something's darker, or something's lighter." It narrowed his military options considerably. A correctional officer was pretty much what was available to him.

His family has Navy roots — uncle, great-grandfather. "I just wanted to break away from the tradition and go Army," he said.

After eight years, he wants to become a state trooper — specifically in Georgia, which he'd researched for a particular reason: "They have certain cars that are unmarked but modified more than normal to keep up with the Hellcats, the Z06s, and the Mustangs." If the military goes well, he might reenlist for twelve more years. If not, he has his fallbacks: a construction and carpentry degree through education benefits, or mechanic work if it comes to that. "I'd say about an eight in my choices," he said. He also wants to build his own house, and he wants to set up his future kids — not existing ones, future ones — to have options he didn't have.

The boys credit Katelyn Green, who runs the co-op program. Hayden's first placement was logistically impossible — a shop in Centralia that opened at 8 am. Katelyn pivoted: What about Landers? One call. He's been there since, loves the job, loves his bosses. They both had Mr. Bryan for transportation the year before, where Hayden arrived thinking he knew cars. Bryan corrected that impression quickly. "He put me in my place," Hayden said. "I didn't know anything."