Matt Stuckey wants Iola folk to know it’s because of their love and mentorship that he’s able to make a career change that’s taking him to Joplin.
Stuckey begins a job in the admissions department of Kansas City University’s new College of Dental Medicine at its Joplin campus at the end of the month.
“It’s a culmination of everything I’ve been learning here,” he said of the transition. The program launches in the fall of 2023. Stuckey’s goal is to recruit 80 students for its first year with an eventual enrollment of 320 students for the four-year program.
“I’ll still be working with students,” he said. “Just older students.”
For most of Stuckey’s life he’s worked with youth in one capacity or another, including 15 years at SAFE BASE, the school district’s after-school program; 21 years as a youth pastor at Wesley United Methodist; seven years at Community Living Opportunities, now GoodLife Innovations; as a facilitator for the 13 Reasons to Fly seminars, and most recently as a youth mental health case manager at the Southeast Kansas Mental Health Center.
“I’ve always loved working with kids one-on-one and seeing them grow,” he said.
Immediately after high school Stuckey took on three responsibilities: Attending Allen Community College; teaching at SAFE BASE and accepting the youth minister position at the Methodist Church.
To up the challenge, Stuckey was made a SAFE BASE site director at McKinley School.
Stuckey said he enjoyed learning the administrative side of the operation and its opportunities.
“I traveled with Angela Henry, the director, to San Francisco and to Washington, D.C. for conferences,” he said. Today, Stuckey serves on the SAFE BASE advisory board.
As for his tenure as a youth minister, “that has been the highlight of my life, and one of the reasons I’ve stayed here for so long.
“You just get so attached to the kids and involved in their lives. I never could have seen that coming,” he said. “I ended up sticking around because I got so invested in them, in their success.”
At the same time, Stuckey invested in his future, graduating from ACC and then Friends University in Wichita with a degree in business administration and management.
Now age 40, Stuckey said that milestone — “and a nudge from God” — convinced him he was ready for a change.
“I thought if I was going to make a change, maybe this is the time. I started wondering what it would be like to live in a new place, even though Joplin is somewhat familiar,” he said.
Most of Stuckey’s extended family lives in the Joplin area. His parents, Clint and Melanie, moved to Baxter Springs in 2015 where Clint took a job as plant manager at Shape Technologies Group, an engineering firm that makes high-powered waterjet pumps. While in Iola, Clint was plant manager for Haldex Brakes before it closed in 2010.
