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[Courtesy: The Lebanon Reporter]

A new trade school in Lebanon graduated its first students this week, but it was no ordinary graduation.

It was also an employment and internship signing day, because these graduates are ready for the workforce.

A good number of the ABC Construction Prep Academy students walked away with full-time jobs in the trades. Their new employers greeted several of them at the podium with gifts in hand.

Daniel Kidwell with Design and Build Electrical in Zionsville hired three seniors: Gregory White and Caleb Caldwell of Lebanon High School and Alexander Krygier of Traders Point Christian High School.

White carried away a black drawstring bag Kidwell handed him and opened it after the ceremony, when he and his friends were eating a celebratory hamburger. The welcoming bag contained a hard hat with a company logo and other official swag.

Then instructor Corey Halterman called White into a private room for a moment, and White returned a few minutes later, holding a certificate and looking stunned. “They gave me a scholarship,” he nearly whispered to his friends.

Kidwell’s company had paid for the first year of White’s electrical apprenticeship.

The academy’s graduates can earn a journeyman’s license on the job at no cost to themselves in three to four years.

“It’s like college without the debt,” Robert Kneberg, director of statewide outreach at the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) Indiana/Kentucky chapter, said.

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