Former math teacher took Oconee schools into computer world

The end of June ushers in retirement for the only director of information technology that the Oconee public schools have known.  Former Pennsylvanian Joe Rukat’s spot on “Technology Drive” in the basement of the school district headquarters will be assumed by a younger man, Josh Shepard.  But those who know Rukat will remember him for a couple of amazing feats.  He has never known an employer other than the Oconee public schools—having gone to work 44 years ago as a Walhalla Middle School math teacher.  Eleven years later he became director of technology for the district.  Rukat was responsible for taking the schools from their era of typewriters and mimeograph machines into the world of computers.  The path that took Rukat and his western Pennsylvania accent from a Pittsburgh area high school to Clemson University (because he heard it was “a great school”) to a faculty position under then Principal Jimmy DuPre at Walhalla Middle and, finally, in 1983, to the job of I-T director for the district.  That means, in a career of 44 years, Joe Rukat has never known another employer.