David Hopkins, a 1976 graduate of Neosho High School, started his teaching career late in life. For the first nine years after graduation from Missouri Southern, he worked in retailing and rental property management.
In 1990, he began teaching math and drama at McDonald County High School, then moved to Seneca High School in 1993 where he taught speech, drama, and math for two years. He then returned to McDonald County as a math/drama teacher for three more years.
Since that time, he has taught in North Callaway High School in east central Missouri.
Hopkins and his wife, Kelli, just celebrated their 31st anniversary. "She is the reason we came to Columbia. She attended law school here," he explained.
As a technology instructor, Hopkins knows that recycling electronic waste (E-waste) is a problem for the entire world. Computers, monitors, television sets, portable phones, and other electronic gadgets contain materials which can be harmful if put with the regular waste and dumped into landfills.
Because of this, for the last seven years, Hopkins and students in his Technology Problem Solving class have been working to make use of outdated computers and electronics.
Hopkins and his students have devised ways to recondition used computers and pass them on to certain individuals and non-profit organizations. Besides providing used computers to their own school, Hopkins and his students have given computers to other area schools, an Audrain County emergency response team, and a group of orphanages in Uganda, Africa.
Hopkins and his students have also worked to collect and process parts left over after refurbishing the machines. They even set up a collection point in Jefferson City. Every part touched by the students "goes somewhere."
Because of their work, the class has become a Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher, making it the only high school class in the state certified to rebuild computers. They also were certified to install Windows operating systems and provide this service to students and non-profit organizations.
Beside providing computers for their own school staff, they have set up a computer checkout system so students without computers at home can check them like a library book.
Because of their accomplishments, Hopkins and his students have received numerous awards and were honored by the Missouri Legislature. Their awards placed them in the top eight high school environmental programs in the nation.
The North Callaway technology program was highlighted in the Winter 2010 Missouri Resources magazine, published by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
Hopkins gives credit for these acheivements to the students. "I am proud of what the kids have accomplished," he said.
E-waste is growing as a problem worldwide, but David Hopkins and his students are making it less of a problem and being recognized for their works. Quite an accomplishment for a man with deep roots in Newton and McDonald County for much of his life.
