Doris King retires after 19 years dedicated to EOC Tech

For 19 years, Doris King has worked at Eastern Oklahoma County Technology Center’s Academic Center as the Student Testing Advisor. Even through the busy, day-to-day routine with students and administering tests, Doris recognized the importance of fun, laughter and of course, food. Through her efforts to entertain faculty and staff with holiday parties, she built camaraderie between employees that will surely be remembered and carried on after her retirement in May.

Career Tech is important to Doris as well as her family as her husband will soon enter retirement after 36 years at Francis Tuttle Technology Center. As for Doris, aside from the few years she worked at an insurance company, she’s spent her entire working career in education.

“We’re just a family of Career Tech people,” she said. “There was a time even my dogs went to career tech—I took them to the obedience training classes held here.”

Doris’s first job in education was at Crutcho Elementary School in Midwest City.

“I spent 14 years at Crutcho Elementary School,” she said. “I worked 7 years as a Teaching Assistant and the last 7 years as a Librarian. My kids were young, even when I started working at EOC Tech and the hours were beneficial, I enjoyed being off when they were so that’s what really drew me into education to begin with.”

Doris made the transition to EOC Tech in August of 1999 and was eager to get started.

“I knew what an Academic Center (previously known as the Education Enhancement Center) was because of my husband and I thought I would really enjoy it,” she said. “I interviewed and wasn’t expecting to get the job, but I did.”

Transitioning from working with elementary school students to high school students was easier than expected for Doris.

“It was quite different, working with older students,” she said. “In all the years I’ve been here I can’t recall a time that we ever had a severe problem with a student — our students are wonderful.”

The responsibilities Doris carried with being the Testing Administrator for the Student Testing Center certainly changed throughout the years and she realized early in her career at EOC Tech how important the knowledge of technology and growth was.

“Soon after I started working here, the technology ball started rolling and I got a computer and I really had to be a part of technology and accept the fact that we had to grow and expand,” she said. “I didn’t think I could do it — it was challenging but important for students and for our institution as a whole, so we did it.”

Through the advancement and the newfound accessibility to technology, Doris said they were able to administer more tests.

“It started out as me just helping students with homework and helping them with their program area,” she said. “Soon, however, testing just took on a life of it’s own because of different certifications that became a requirement and we started doing more of it.”

The Academic Center is designed to help students by providing them with assistance in basic academic skills for their specific training program. The Academic Center tests students on basic skills, computer literacy, evaluation, individual study, math and reading.

Aside from working with students, Doris prides herself on taking the role of a hostess and making others feel welcome, which led her to open up the Academic Center to faculty and staff for holiday parties ranging anywhere from Christmas to Halloween.

“I remember going to a conference one time and they said it’s important for staff to have fun and to laugh,” she said. “It can’t just be all business so we just started having parties and it got to where our administrators would ask when our parties were scheduled so they could put it in the calendar. That’s really one of the things I have enjoyed the most.”

Doris said during her retirement, she and her husband hope to do quite a bit of international travel as well as local.

“We would love to travel internationally but we also love Oklahoma,” she said. “The State Parks here are beautiful so we’re just looking forward to the opportunity to travel and spend more time with our grandkids.”