LaBELLE, Fla. — One of Florida’s poorest counties is preparing for the new “Airglades” airport, a $300 million cargo hub that could transform its economy.

Local leaders see the project as a generational opportunity, one that could bring more than 1,400 new, high-skilled jobs to their largely agricultural community at the edge of the Everglades. But to make good on its promise, the region’s educators will have to overcome some harsh realities.

A third of Hendry County’s working-age adults lack a high-school diploma, while almost half speak a language other than English at home, among the highest in Florida. Before local leaders can prepare residents for jobs in engineering and manufacturing, educators must first help them earn their GEDs and learn English.

“We have some of God’s most beautiful country that has never been touched by man,” said Michael Swindle, the county schools superintendent, and yet “by all the metrics you would judge a county on, we’re either No. 1 or No. 2 in the ugly categories.”

As the airport project pursues approval, community groups and schools are working to fill teacher shortages and make investments in adult education.

The challenges also include some political headwinds. Most of the county’s workforce is Black and Latino. Efforts to tailor education to serve those demographic groups have drawn scrutiny in Florida, where politicians have forbidden programs factoring race and national origin into people’s treatment. Educators say the political context adds to the difficulties in recruiting teachers.

The plan to convert the small, county-owned airport to private ownership still has to win approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, which will depend partly on solidifying contracts with vendors in Latin America to prove its potential as a hub for perishable goods.

Meanwhile, two adult education centers in the county expanded with support from the FutureMakers Coalition, a community organization that has spearheaded education retraining efforts across southwest Florida. It also is paying for a counselor to help adults looking to develop new skills and change careers.

Spanish-speaking students have filled the adult education center in LaBelle, the 5,000-person county seat.

Many are working jobs or have kids at home, which has forced their instructor, Silvia Gullett, to get creative to meet their needs. She started a WhatsApp group so students could organize carpooling or split childcare duties. If students don’t show up to class, Gullett texts them to figure out the problem. She doesn’t settle for easy excuses.

“In the beginning, I had some students who didn’t want to continue. I try to tell people that the only one who can stop them is themselves,” said Gullett, who was born in Peru before starting her teaching career in Florida two decades ago.

At the country’s other adult education center, in Clewiston, sparks fly as dozens of students in thick gloves and respirator masks work toward industrial certifications needed to enter the workforce. One of them, Samantha Garza, 21, initially studied child care at a community college in Fort Myers but pivoted after watching YouTube videos about female welders.

“I’m an artsy person, so I have more of a steady hand already, and I love to be down and dirty doing physical things, so I felt like this would be a career for me,” she said.

Even before the airport arrives, there are still plenty of local employers waiting to hire the students. As current employees near retirement age, U.S. Sugar, the Clewiston-based farming giant, has such urgent needs it started an in-house welding program.

“We’re trying to close that generation gap between mechanics and welders,” said Nathan Hollis, an industrial skills trainer at the company.

Finding enough instructors to offer the training has been a challenge. Swindle had to recruit a U.S. Sugar worker to teach welding and coax a school bus mechanic out of retirement to lead the diesel mechanics program.

Still, the program has been so successful the county is using tuition revenue and donations to open another training facility in LaBelle focused on HVAC and plumbing.

There has been controversy around some efforts, including a slide on the topic of “white privilege” shown during a teacher training event led by FutureMakers. It sparked an outcry from conservative activists who accused organizers of racism, and a Republican city commissioner in LaBelle suggested it violated the “ Stop WOKE Act ” signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican.

The political climate in Florida has made it difficult to attract K-12 teachers, according to Swindle. In a state where DeSantis has harnessed culture war passions in his education policies, Swindle said many of his teachers feel unsupported.

“The rhetoric around public education is horrible. It absolutely does hurt us,” Swindle said.

Teacher shortages threaten local schools’ ability to teach not just welders and mechanics, but also construction workers, nurses and other professionals to support the influx of people the airport could bring.

“We don’t have a chemistry or physics teacher in high school. We’ve left the job openings up for three years, and we can’t even get someone to apply,” Swindle said.

The county has been running more marketing campaigns to recruit educators and paying paraprofessionals to secure licenses so they can become teachers with help from a $23 million Good Jobs Challenge grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

There is a lot at stake for Swindle’s long-time home.

The superintendent knows where the alligators lie, sunbathing along the acres of canals that irrigate fields of sugarcane. He knows which sabal palms make the best swamp cabbage, teaching his sons how to cut palm hearts out with his knife, like their ancestors did to survive leaner times.

Yet there is no way to know if all his retraining efforts will be successful. The airport still might not come, especially if the county can’t prove it will have the workers ready to support it.

For now, officials are trying to fill current workforce needs while test-driving their ability to spin up new training programs. Once construction begins on the airport, they know they will have about two years to teach a wave of logistics operators, agricultural customs inspectors and other aviation-specific professionals.

“We’re not just talking about an airport,” Swindle said. “We’re looking at this as an opportunity to move the needle on unemployment, on poverty, to a better place.”

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Nick Fouriezos covers the role of college in rural America for Open Campus, a nonprofit newsroom focused on higher education. Sign up for his newsletter, Mile Markers.

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No. 8 national seed Florida State will remain in Omaha, Nebraska, after defeating Virginia 7-3 in an elimination game at the 2024 College World Series on Sunday afternoon.

The Seminoles advance to face the loser of the Tennessee-North Carolina game on Tuesday, June 18 at 2 p.m. at Charles Schwab Stadium.

FSU starting pitcher Carson Dorsey was superb on the mound against Virginia, pitching into the eighth inning. He scattered nine hits and finished with seven strikeouts on 106 pitches.

Jaime Ferrer sparked the Seminoles crowd with two home runs and four RBI. Ferrer’s three-run homer in the fifth inning was part of a four-run inning that opened the game up for FSU at 6-0. Alex Lodise’s leadoff homer to start the sixth pushed FSU’s advantage to 7-0.

Virginia, which outhit FSU 10-7, became the first team bounced from the eight-team, double-elimination tournament. The Cavaliers put together a rally in the seventh inning after back-to-back singles by Ethan Anderson and Anthony Stephan. After two strikeouts, Henry Godbout and Casey Saucke had back-to-back RBI singles to cut Virginia’s deficit to 7-2 before Henry Ford struck out.

Virginia starting pitcher starter Jay Woolfolk tweaked his right knee after allowing Ferrer’s first homer, a solo shot in the fourth inning. Joe Savino came in to relieve Woolfolk a few batters later.

Peter Holland Jr. covers Florida State athletics for the Tallahassee Democrat. He can be contacted by email at PHolland@Gannett.com or on X @_Da_pistol.

The spark in Leo Jungerman’s eyes when he watched his first hockey game was different.

He’d tried other sports like soccer and tennis, his father Alex said. But a hockey game featuring the Toronto Marlies — the Toronto Maple Leafs’ minor league team — is where an 8-year-old Leo’s love truly began for the sport.

“When we were watching the game, I spent a big chunk of the time looking at him,” Alex Jungerman said, “and it was kind of fascinating. So when he expressed interest in trying the game, I jumped right in.”

Alex, who had moved his family from Brazil to Florida that year in 2015, started looking for youth hockey programs for Leo, who knew nothing about hockey and couldn’t even skate.

That’s when he came across the Florida Panthers Learn to Play initiative — a program designed to introduce boys and girls to hockey while reducing barriers to entry for the sport. It’s part of the Panthers’ overall effort to grow the game in untapped communities, particularly the rapidly growing Hispanic market.

Almost 30% of Floridians are Latino, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, higher than the national average of about 19%. There are more than 500,000 Hispanic residents in Broward County, Florida, where the Panthers’ Amerant Bank Arena is located. That number increases to more than 1.7 million in neighboring Miami-Dade, Florida’s most populous county.

“The demographic makeup in Florida certainly expresses an interest that it’s extremely important to connect to the Latino community,” said Rob Knesaurek, the NHL’s senior vice president of community development and industry growth. “They’re deeply rooted in sports. Why wouldn’t they pick our sport?”

Knesaurek added the NHL is more intentional in popularizing the sport in Latino communities, where the league hasn’t been traditionally proactive. That started with league-wide efforts to connect with Hispanic fans as well as those in underserved communities, and it trickles down to grassroots initiatives by individual teams.

The NHL and NHL Player’s Association’s industry growth fund has spent more than $180 million over the past decade on programs that bring hockey to communities across North America. It focuses largely on combating the barriers of access and cost.

Through the fund, many clubs can offer a fixed, affordable amount for equipment and lessons — some offer them for free — and coaches who speak both Spanish and English.

Alex Jungerman estimated he spent around $300 for the Panthers’ Learn to Play program. Leo got full equipment, including skates and six lessons, to start his hockey journey.

Instructors could translate hockey lingo to the Jungermans. Leo said the Panthers made him feel welcomed, especially in moments when learning hockey felt scary.

“There were several times I wanted to quit, especially because of the skating,” Leo said, “like you’re balancing your whole body weight on two little edges. It’s hard to learn.”

He stuck with it. Now at 16, he’s on Florida’s Junior Panthers travel hockey team.

“Leo’s just a perfect example of a family that could have easily walked away from this if they didn’t feel welcomed or part of this,” said John Colombo, the Panthers’ vice president of community relations. “And I think that’s important. I think too often hockey culture gets that reputation of being very exclusive.”

Overall, the NHL said over $4 million in industry growth fund grants have been given to support the Panthers’ initiatives to grow the game.

The team’s floorball PE program has reached over 300,000 students across 450 schools in Florida — introducing kids to the sport and the Panthers’ brand with the goal of creating lifelong fans.

The Panthers during the season hold a “¡Vamos Gatos!” night, which celebrates South Florida’s Hispanic and Latino community. They’ve hosted the LATAM Cup — a three-day tournament featuring Latin American and Caribbean countries — since its inception in 2018. And they’ve also expanded into the entertainment arena, inviting more Hispanic and Latino artists to perform at Amerant Bank Arena. The arena hosted the Latin Billboard Music Awards in 2020 and Latin American Music Awards in 2021.

“(We) are not looking for the next NHLer,” Knesaurek said. “What we are looking for is to build good, healthy, vibrant communities through good citizens.”

The Panthers recent success on the ice has certainly helped with their popularity. Florida has a 3-1 lead over the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup Final, which the Panthers are competing in for the second straight year.

“The popularity of the sport and how the team has progressed over the last three or four years, I think you’re going to see an uptick,” said Bryan Smolinski, a former NHL player and regional director with the league’s industry growth fund.

Hispanic and Latino participation in Florida’s Learn to Play program increased 15% from 2023 to 2024.

Leo Jungerman was featured on the team’s first Learn to Play poster from 2015. The Jungermans have that poster displayed at the entrance of their home as a reminder of how far he’s come.

“We make sure that everyone that comes to the house for the first time, we stop them from in front of the poster. We explain the story,” Alex Jungerman said. “We are really proud.”

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL