Last Updated on August 31, 2020 by Ivy Tech Community College Kokomo
SOURCE: News release from Ivy Tech Community College Kokomo
KOKOMO, Ind. — Two Kokomo area leaders have been named to the Ivy Tech Kokomo Campus Board of Trustees.
Steve Edwards, principal at Western High School, was appointed by the Ivy Tech State Board of Trustees to a three-year term, representing education on the seven-member board of the Kokomo Service Area.
Chet Fincher, who represents labor, was reappointed to his second three-year term on the regional board that serves Cass, Fulton, Howard, Miami, and Tipton counties.
“We are very pleased that Steve has joined the board and that Chet will continue to serve,” said Dean McCurdy, chancellor of Ivy Tech Kokomo. “They bring professional experience and records of community service that will allow for important input as the board and the Kokomo Service Area faculty and staff work to better serve our students and meet the needs of the businesses and industries in our region.”
Members of Ivy Tech’s 18 campus boards have four essential responsibilities. These include analyzing educational needs and opportunities in the region, approving regional programming and recommending to the state board a plan to provide education and workforce development programs for the region, approving the region’s budget, and recommending methods for acquiring facilities and equipment needed to deliver regional programs.
Edwards, who has been in education for 27 years, served as principal at Frankfort High School for eight years and vice principal at Kokomo High School before joining Western as high school principal in August 2019. He spent 14 years in the classroom as a Social Studies teacher, the majority at Highland High School in Northwest Indiana, before becoming an administrator. He also has been very active coaching baseball, football, basketball, and softball.
With what he describes as “a passion for human resources, budgeting, operations, facilities, and management,” Edward said his recent focus as an instructional leader has been on career and technical education (CTE), professional learning communities (PLC), and social emotional learning (SEL). He earned an undergraduate degree from Purdue University Calumet and a master’s degree from Ball State University and is working on a superintendent’s license through Indiana State University.
“It is an honor and pleasure to serve on the Ivy Tech Kokomo Campus Board of Trustees,” Edwards said. “Being on the board allows me to be part of an outstanding educational institution that gives people a chance to find what they want to do as they move forward in their college and career pathways.”
Edwards and his wife, Cindy, live in Kokomo and have two daughters, Stephanie and Jessica.
Fincher, a native of Logansport, is business representative for the Indiana/Kentucky/Ohio Regional Council of Carpenters. A 1993 graduate of Logansport High School, he completed the United Brotherhood of Carpenters apprenticeship program in 1997. He worked as a journeyman carpenter, foreman and general foreman from 1997 to 2011 before taking on his current responsibility overseeing daily operations of the Regional Council of Carpenters in 20 counties in northeast Indiana. He has been a part-time instructor in OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) course for the carpenter apprenticeship program and has served on the apprenticeship advisory board in Warsaw since 2012.
He and his wife, Lauren, are the parents of three children, Luke, Maggie, and Jacob. The family is very involved in the ministries of All Saints Catholic Church and in community and school activities.