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Mallory Claypool, a 2012 graduate of ������Ƶ Kokomo’s Education program who now serves as director of the Lewis Cass Polytechnic Academy in Galveston, is being honored with the ������Ƶ Distinguished Alumni Award for the College’s Kokomo Service Area.

Each year, ������Ƶ Kokomo Service honors a graduate who exemplifies an appreciation of lifelong learning, a dedication to work, and a commitment to community. Claypool will be honored Thursday, Sept. 29, at a ceremony in Indianapolis that will recognize award winners from ������Ƶ’s 19 campuses around the state.  

“������Ƶ Kokomo is proud to call Mallory Claypool – teacher, husband, father, community volunteer, life-long learner – our 2022 Distinguished Alumnus,” said Ethan Heicher, interim chancellor of ������Ƶ’s Kokomo Service Area, which includes Cass, Fulton, Howard, Miami, Pulaski and Tipton counties. “Through his efforts bringing together students, higher education and employers throughout north central Indiana, he is making tremendous contributions to our community.”

Claypool is in his fourth year as the director of Lewis Cass Polytechnic, a part of the Lewis Cass School Corporation devoted to preparing high school students for jobs of the future focused on science, engineering and math. It’s a job he loves with a passion and one where he changes students’ lives for the better every day. But go back 10 years or so and it’s hardly a job that he ever anticipated filling.

In those 10 years or so, Claypool became a “poster child” for the value of an ������Ƶ education in reimagining one’s life. In 2002, after almost 20 years in the food service industry, jobs that took him all over the country, he and wife Lori settled in Walton to raise their five children. Mallory made what he now describes as “kind of a radical decision.” He decided to return to college to become a math teacher.

He chose ������Ƶ in Kokomo and, in 2012, the veteran restaurant manager graduated with his associate degree in Education. In 2015, he earned a bachelor’s degree in Secondary Mathematics Education from WGU and started teaching math and industrial technology classes at Lewis Cass High School before moving to the new Polytechnic Academy. In the meantime, he has completed a master’s degree and nearly all his coursework for a Ph.D. in Technology, both at Purdue University.

Claypool credits ������Ƶ with providing the basis for his new life. “Getting that two-year degree versus waiting on a four-year reward probably made all the difference,” he said. “It was that milestone, a tangible result, that gave me the confidence to move on from there. ������Ƶ got me to a point I knew I could complete the next degree.”

He now partners with employers and schools across north central Indiana to expand the offerings of the Polytechnic Academy. This includes a partnership with ������Ƶ that allows students to complete a variety of dual credit classes that can move right into jobs or further education.

Claypool isn’t the only career-changing ������Ƶ alum in the family. His wife, Lori, also came back to ������Ƶ as an adult student, earning an associate degree in Early Childhood Education in 2011, the year before Mallory completed his first degree. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Trine University and completed her master’s degree in Social Work while Mallory completed his. She now is a family therapist working for Counseling Partners in Lafayette. Together, the Claypools have raised five children, all of whom have completed or are pursuing college degrees.

To learn more about the Education program