Nevada GEAR UP College and Career Fair Draws 600 Students to Pahrump Valley High

What used to send 106 juniors and seniors on a bus to Beatty became something far larger when Nevada GEAR UP moved its college and career fair to Pahrump Valley High School, filling the gym with roughly 600 students drawn from every high school in the Nye County district.

GEAR UP coordinator Lisa Hamrick said the venue shift was deliberate and timed to a strategic scheduling decision. "There was a fair being held in Las Vegas, the Access College Fair and so we decided to have ours at the same time to get more colleges out here," Hamrick said. "This was our most successful college and career fair to date. We worked very hard to make it the biggest, best and most successful."

The fair, which stands for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, typically draws a limited cohort because of its Beatty location, chosen for its central position within the county. This year, Hamrick expanded eligibility to every junior and senior across district high schools, pulling students in from Pahrump, Beatty, Round Mountain and Tonopah. "This year was different," she said. "We opened it to all the juniors and seniors from all the high schools in the district."

Senior counselor Carluh Luck said 20 colleges from across Nevada filled the gym floor, but the standout moment came from a representative nobody had formally contacted. "We even had one college come from out of state, one that we didn't know about and just came because they heard about it," Luck said. "They were from the SUNY Colleges in New York. We also had all branches of the military come and 30 businesses."

The Nevada State Treasurer's Office also had a table at the fair. Marketing Coordinator Troy Watts engaged with students and attendees to promote educational opportunities and connect them with career pathways and future planning resources.

Hamrick said she believes the cumulative effect of GEAR UP events throughout the school year is shifting how students think about higher education, making them more aware of the planning required long before a college application deadline arrives.