VENTURA : Women Focus of Career Day at High School

Ventura High School senior Carrie Parks paid no attention to dozens of tables lining the walls of the girls’ gymnasium Thursday.

Instead, she headed straight toward the Ventura Police Department booth to find out what it would take to realize her dream.

“I want to become a police officer real bad,” the 18-year-old said. “I had fun when I was an Explorer and it seemed really exciting.”

Representatives of virtually every industry in Ventura County showed up at the fifth annual Career Day at Ventura High School, a morning-long seminar of vocational options tailored for women in the 1990s.

After a few minutes at the Ventura police booth, armed with information about policing supplied by Officer Wenona Utter, Parks was more determined than ever.

“Everybody’s told me I can’t, so I’m going to do it,” she said. “But I didn’t know you had to be 20 to be a police officer.”

Chris Mikles, a Ventura High math teacher, started the school’s Career Day in 1990 after noticing that many of her female students lacked career guidance. The annual event is not connected to the nationwide “Take Our Daughters to Work Day,” which was also observed Thursday.

“Girls don’t have an awful lot of role models, or information about what they can do,” Mikles said.

“Girls are so smart, and they really need to see they can do this kind of stuff,” added Mikles, who made national news earlier this school year when she started one of the first all-girl math classes in the country.

“By exposing them to more female role models, it will help them set some future goals for themselves,” Mikles said.

Outside the gym, 16-year-old Lindsay Crabbe was tinkering for the first time under the hood of her 1991 Plymouth Laser at a car-care demonstration.

“I brought it down here and (teacher Bob Dixon) showed me how to do all this stuff,” Lindsay said. “Now I can change a tire, the oil, check the brake fluid, the clutch fluid and the windshield wiper fluid.”

Nearby, clad in a bright yellow fireproof jacket, sophomore Pam Knutson was breathing through a face mask from a tank of oxygen strapped across her back.

“It could be something I’d want to do, save people and fight fires,” she said, removing the jacket and thick rubber mask. But she was more excited to get a glimpse of the wide array of jobs available to her.

“It really opens my eyes about the opportunities,” said Pam, who plans to attend Cal State Northridge when she graduates. “It gives me a lot of choices about what I might want to be.”

On the soccer field outside the girls’ gym, 16-year-old Christina Gerber got her first taste of operating a backhoe.

“It’s different than driving a regular car,” she said. “But I think I’ll stick with becoming a veterinarian.”