Learning to Love the Family Business

By the time he reached his mid-teens, Pate Thomas was well-versed on his family’s deep roots as both educators and Rebels.

They traced back three previous generations to his great-grandmother (who taught in the Clark County School District) and great-grandfather (a pioneering faculty member who cast a key vote that helped establish UNLV as an independent university).

As he was completing his time at Cimarron-Memorial High School — where his parents were longtime teachers — five family members had already earned seven UNLV degrees.

All but one of those degrees? Education-related.

Thomas appreciated his family’s legacy as Rebel-graduated educators. He respected it.

And he wanted none of it.

“Around the time I graduated high school, there was a big trend of kids leaving Las Vegas to go to college,” Thomas recalls. “A lot of my friends went to California, went to Reno, went all over the place. I felt like there was a push in our community to leave. So initially, I wanted to go to UNR.

“Also, when I was growing up, I always said I’d never become a teacher.”

His parents’ reaction to the decision to shun UNLV for the school up north: Go ahead — so long as you can foot the bill.

Needless to say, Thomas succumbed to those practicalities but he stuck to his “I’m not going to be a teacher” guns, bypassing education for a criminal justice major with plans to become a lawyer.

“I didn’t understand why anyone would want to be a teacher,” Thomas says of his mindset at the time. “You spend all your time at school; you don’t make any money — it didn’t make any sense to me. … But my parents would often say to me, ‘One day, you’ll learn why.’

Spoiler alert: He learned.

As Thomas recounts this story some 15 years later, he’s holed up in a temporary office while construction of South Career Technical Academy finishes up. Thomas was named the new school’s principal in September 2024.

That’s right: The teenager who was determined to not attend UNLV and not become a professional educator is a proud Rebel alumnus (’12 BS Secondary Education) and a high school principal.

So what led Thomas to enter the family business? Let’s just say the professional educator light bulb that his parents told him would someday illuminate finally did.

Flashback to mid-2009. Thomas was two years into his pre-law studies when he and several classmates found themselves in front of a panel of three professional lawyers. At the time, Thomas had a decent-paying job in auto insurance but was disheartened by both the work and the industry’s practices.

So when it was his turn to pose a question to the panel, Thomas went into full courtroom lawyer mode — that is, he was direct and to the point.

“Do you like your job?”

Their answers prompted him to call his mother and deliver the news: He was pulling the plug on pursuing a career in law.

Her response also was direct: “You want us to keep paying for school? Switch to education.”

With that, Thomas’ branch on the family tree began to take shape. In fact, within moments of entering his first education class, there was no turning back. 

“Everything in that class was easy, it was fun, and I started to understand that I found my space,” Thomas says. “I kind of knew right then what I was going to do with the rest of my life.”

A different learning experience — ‘technically’ speaking

After completing his first couple of education classes, Thomas became eligible to work as a substitute teacher in the Clark County School District. He soon was offered an opportunity to teach social studies at a nontraditional high school, Southwest Career Technical Academy.

Technical academy curriculums are geared toward two distinct types of high school students: those who already are career-focused and want to get a jump-start on their field of choice, and those who are looking for something different than the traditional high school setting.

When South Career Technical Academy opens this fall, it will be the seventh such CTA in the Las Vegas Valley.

Unlike traditional schools, students interested in a CTA must apply to their preferred school. And because space is limited — each academy has a student population ranging from 1,500 to 2,100 — acceptance is not guaranteed. (It involves a lottery process, which is open to all students.)

Although Thomas attended traditional schools growing up, he quickly began to understand the allure of technical academies. And not just for students.

“One of the biggest differences between teaching at a technical academy versus teaching at a comprehensive high school is that most of your kids want to be there,” he says. “So if you’re not on your A-game every day, the kids will let your supervisor or their parents know, and then you’re going to [hear about it]. So I learned that I needed to perform every single day.

“The other thing is you’re not dealing as much with discipline. So you’re able to actually focus on teaching strategies and push your students to a higher level.”

Now well into his second decade as an educator, Thomas has worked almost exclusively at CTAs. He has been a social studies teacher, recruitment counselor, assistant principal, and now principal.

As he prepares for South CTA’s fall opening, Thomas is grappling with a lengthy to-do list. There are budget numbers to crunch, student applications to review, faculty and staff to hire, and — come summertime — a new building to move into.

“It’s a little nerve-racking because so much needs to be done and everything is happening so fast,” he says.

As much as Thomas has on his plate, though, he always makes sure to carve out time for what have become two of his greatest passions: improving Southern Nevada’s education system and promoting UNLV.

No big surprise there, seeing that both are deeply ingrained in his DNA.

Born to be Rebels 

Thomas never met Herb Derfelt. But growing up, he learned about his great-grandfather’s legacy as a passionate educator — a legacy that includes an important connection to UNLV.

As the sole professor at UNR’s satellite campus, then known as Nevada Southern University, it was up to Derfelt to approve or reject a new radiology program that was proposed in the mid-1950s. With his “yes” vote, Derfelt essentially cut the umbilical cord that had tied Nevada Southern to UNR, with the former eventually morphing into UNLV. 

Derfelt went on to become one of the first full-time professors in UNLV’s College of Education. And like a conga line, Derfelt’s offspring (and their offspring and their offspring) joined the Rebel family, all passing through the halls of the William D. Carlson Education Building.

That, of course, includes Thomas, a fourth-generation Rebel who sings the praises of his alma mater — and in particular, UNLV’s College of Education — wherever he goes.

In fact, throughout his career, Thomas has spearheaded annual campus visits for juniors in the high schools where he taught.

“I want people in this community to feel the same way that I do about UNLV,” he says. “When I recruit local students to go to UNLV these days — which is something I still do — one positive that I highlight is how you’re able to get the full college experience while also being close to home when something breaks down and you need that family support.

“I didn’t realize that when I was choosing a college. I just wasn’t mature enough to see it. But now that I’m older, I get it.”

So, too, does his wife.

A first-generation college student, Roxane Thomas met her future husband at Cimarron-Memorial High School, joined him at UNLV, and earned the same secondary education degree in 2013.

Also like her husband, Roxane Thomas works at a CTA, serving as assistant principal at Northeast Career Technical Academy in North Las Vegas. Together, they have two young sons, 10-year-old Carson and 7-year-old Paxton. 

“We take them out to UNLV almost every month to show them the campus and talk to them about being a Rebel — just like my family did with me,” Pate Thomas says. “So, yeah, I’m positive they will continue the family’s UNLV legacy.”

Will both children become the latest Thomases to pursue education degrees? That answer will be revealed down the road when both near college age. Rest assured, though, their parents will apply the full-court press in much the same way Pate Thomas’ parents did to him.

The reason? Both Thomases, and the three generations before them, understand that a community will never be able to consistently provide a quality education for its citizenry — the kind of education that changes lives — unless it first cultivates quality teachers.

“Once you’re in this profession long enough, you begin to realize that improving education is not really about people in leadership positions; it’s about having great teachers,” Pate Thomas says. “The more great teachers we have, everything else starts to take care of itself.”