Durant High School Aviation hosted Southern Oklahoma Student Aero Day on March 26 with 12 schools and more than 200 students from southeastern Oklahoma participating. Many aviation professionals attended to give students opportunities to learn more about aviation.
Dr. Zac Morgan, director of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education at Durant Schools, said the school district partnered with Southeastern, Kiamichi Technology Center and the Oklahoma Department of Aeronautics and Aerospace to host the event.
“We have about 240 kids from 12 schools roughly south of I-40 who’ve come to join us and it’s interactive learning,” Morgan said. “They had a keynote address from the Choctaw Nation Emergency Technologies drone research folks.”
According to Morgan, the students had tours of the Southeastern aviation campus and Kiamichi Technology Center. They were able to try flight simulators and the U.S. Air Force, plus many curriculum providers were present for the event.
“These are all students of schools that currently have the AOPA high school aviation curriculum, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association,” Morgan said. “It’s a nationwide general aviation engagement group and through their non-profit foundation, they have a turnkey high school aviation curriculum that is available to schools for free.”
Last year, the event was in Ada and last summer when the high school had its grand opening of the aviation lab, Paula Kedy, the statewide STEM education manager for Oklahoma Department of Aerospace and Aeronautics, asked if Durant High School would partner with Southeastern and host this year, and Morgan said he was happy to do that.
According to Morgan, between the school district’s aviation offerings in the eighth grade and at the high school, there are almost 100 aviation students.
The school’s aviation program partnered with Tango Flight to give students the opportunity to build an airplane.
“We are finishing up our first year of the Tango Flight airplane build, and we’re starting to have it more airplane- looking than bags of bolts and screws,” Morgan said. “So, that project’s coming along well.”
Morgan said he expects the airplane to be finished between spring break 2027 and the end of the school year. Then, it will be certified as air worthiness by an inspector from the Federal Aviation Administration.
“After it’s completed, I think there’s about three or four test flights and then a thorough inspection by the air worthiness representative and then it will be ready to go,” Morgan said.
