Dr. Arch Alexander
Teacher, administrator, war veteran, professor, college dean and international consultant -- Arch Alexander, retired deputy director of the Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education, has been all of these.
Alexander’s career began in 1942 with the U.S.’s largest employer—the military—fighting the German Luftwaffe in the skies over Europe. He began his teaching career in 1946 in Hobart, Oklahoma, and accepted the post of dean of Sayre Junior College one year later. In 1950, he was recalled to service by the Oklahoma National Guard and spent the next two years as an infantry company commander in the Korean War.
He returned to Sayre in 1952 and became Sayre superintendent of schools and president of Sayre Junior College in 1954. In 1965, he became assistant state coordinator for area vocational-technical education but left in 1966 to become the dean of academic affairs for Cameron State College. A year later, he was back in Stillwater to become assistant director of the Oklahoma Department of Vocational and Technical Education. In 1972, he was promoted to the agency’s deputy director.
Alexander is recognized as one of the driving forces behind Oklahoma’s nationally known quick start industry training program. In 1991, he was one of four inductees into the Oklahoma Educators Hall of Fame.
Alexander was inducted into the CareerTech Hall of Fame in 1991.
