Wes Jackson stumbled through college twice before he found his way. Now he makes sure McAlester kids do not have to.

Wes Jackson changed his college major seven times. Then he dropped out. Twice. He slept on a buddy's couch for a month. His grades, by his own telling, were not good. It took him until age 36 to figure out he belonged in education, and a master's degree to make it stick.

He tells his students all of this. On purpose.

"I'm not some god-sent educator that's perfect," he says. "I've messed up." When the kids hear it, something shifts. "They're like, oh, he's human."

Jackson runs the JAG program at McAlester High School. JAG stands for Jobs for America's Graduates, and the short version is this: it teaches the things people always say they wish school had taught them. How to fill out a job application. How to interview. How to budget. How to put in a two weeks' notice instead of just not showing up. Jackson spent years coaching sports and teaching history before he found it. He had always cared about these skills. He just never had a place to teach them.

"I cared that these kids were successful, but there was no place that I could foster that, other than a sports field," he says.

Ask Jackson what the whole thing is really about, and he keeps it simple. The mission, he says, is unlocking the success and leadership potential of students. Everything else is just figuring out, one kid at a time, how to get there.

The biggest thing standing in a young person's way, he believes, is the unknown. Kids in McAlester can usually name about five places to work. The base. The prison. The city. Walmart. Retail and food service. They do not know about everything else, because nobody has shown them. So Jackson brings the world to the classroom. He has invited in the OSBI for a student interested in criminal justice. A licensed counselor for one who wants to be a therapist. The City of McAlester for local jobs. Soon, a printing company for the kids drawn to graphic design.

He remembers a young man named Trevor Toycen, who walked in with a 29 on his ACT and a 3.9 grade point average and a quiet certainty that college was out of reach. "I can't afford to go to college," he told Jackson. "I want to, but it's not possible." Today that student has tens of thousands in tuition waivers and a full ride to East Central University.

"When I heard that I can't go and do what I want because of finances," Jackson says, "I said, this is going to be worth it. We just got to get there."

The work does not end at graduation. JAG follows its graduates for a year, month by month, and Jackson takes that part seriously. Since his first seniors walked the stage, he has driven one to work, taken another to open a bank account, sat with a third to fill out HR paperwork. They text him asking where they should apply. He looks it up and answers.

"It's not that they walk across stage and they walk out that door for me anymore," he says.

He worries he is not doing enough. Every day, he says. Every day of his life. But the numbers tell a steadier story. This year, he says, every single one of his students grew academically. All of them are moving up a grade. All of them have a career goal. Some are setting goals so specific they surprise him, mapping out welding certifications step by step.

This is where McAlester comes in. Jackson would welcome any employer in town with a unique career to come and speak to his students. A chef. A small business owner. A food truck cook. An auto detail shop owner. Anyone willing to sit with the kids and tell them the honest version, the struggles, the good days, the hours, the things you only learn by doing the work. He has had guest speakers from some fields already, and he is glad to have more. Even a second voice from the same profession, he says, never hurts.

Anyone who wants to help can reach Jackson at his school email, [email protected], or by calling McAlester High School and asking for extension 8159.

Jackson never had a mentor. No one believed in him first, he says, and the hard lessons were his only teacher. That is exactly why he does this. So a kid in McAlester does not have to spend seven majors and two dropouts learning what someone could have simply told them.