LCHS graduate Travis Hardin's student service career keeps growing
By Jim Turner - Editor of The Logan Journal (LOJO)
A Logan County native continues to move up the leadership ladder in student service roles. After several stops, he’s back in his home area working with high school students who need help in getting prepared for college and adult life.
Travis Hardin grew up in a single-parent household outside of Lewisburg in Hollow Bill. He can relate to several of the students whom he helps, who also are not part of traditional father-mother-children, households.
Travis attended Lewisburg Elementary and Middle School from 1995-2000 where he played basketball and football.
Then he attended Logan County High School from 2001-2005. There he played football, threw discus on the track team, and participated in JROTC. While in high school, he participated in the Upward Bound program through Western Kentucky University, which was great preparation for his current role.
Neither of his parents attended a post-secondary institution. His mother was a factory worker, Father worked at an auto dealership.
Travis wanted something different. He attended and graduated from Western Kentucky University, working as a Resident Assistant throughout college. A very active student, he was a participant in Student Support Services, joined Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and was elected president of the Resident Staff Association.
After graduating, his career began as one of the first live-in Housing professionals at the University of South Alabama. Then he became an Area Coordinator at the University of Southern Indiana. He left that job to return home to become an Admissions Counselor for Western Kentucky University, serving 33 of Kentucky’s eastern counties to be closer to his mother whose health was failing. While in this position, he got to travel to Ohio, Illinois, Texas, Missouri, Alabama, Georgia, Virginia, and West Virginia. Being a recruiter, he was able to increase the college’s revenue by $1.25 million.
Lost his mother from kidney failure when she was 50 and he was 25 in 2012.
After that, received an offer to teach English in China. Accepted the offer and through help from his family and friends left to go live abroad. Lived and taught in China for two years.
Next, he accepted a job at New College of Florida in 2018 as an Assistant Director of Enrollment. While in that position, he got to travel to Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, the Virgin Islands, California, Washington, and Oregon. After the first year, he was promoted to Associate Director of Enrollment.
After coming home to visit and consulting a mentor, he gave his two weeks’ notice to New College of Florida and accepted a position at Southcentral Kentucky Community & Technical College in the TRIO programs of Educational Opportunity Center and Student Support Services. During his first year an opportunity to join a brand-new program appeared, so he switched to his current role of Program Coordinator for Upward Bound Math & Science.
This program serves Logan County High School, Russellville High School, Todd County Central High School, and Franklin Simpson High School. This is a program he felt could be his way of giving back to the program that gave him the opportunity to succeed. He knew there were a lot of students throughout his home community that could benefit from the program and was eager to give back and help.
His office is at SKYCTC’s Franklin Simpson Center, but he spends a lot of time working with students at the Logan County Community & Technical Center, RHS and LCHS.
Travis Hardin is still young, but his life and work seem to have come full circle. He started out at LCHS and WKU, now he’s back at SKYCTC helping young students like he was plan their immediate and long-range futures.
