Harl Roehm is a 28-year veteran CTE teacher at Collierville High School in Tennessee who showed up to an AI summit in Nashville wearing a cowboy hat and overalls, and walked away as one of the most compelling voices in the room.
A fifth-generation farmer from Mississippi, Harl’s tech career started the way all great origin stories do: with a $25 yard-sale computer, a Saturday afternoon, and zero formal training. By Monday morning, he was teaching A+ certification. He never looked back.
Today, Harl teaches AP Computer Science, Python, JavaScript, and dual-enrollment Cybersecurity. He builds custom AI agents that generate dad-joke math problems ranked by Taco Bell hot sauce levels. He plays AI-generated songs for his students every morning and dares them to spot the fakes.
He texts his married daughter goodnight every single night. And he will tell you, unapologetically, that if you love something and you’re not fighting to make it better, you’re part of the problem.
Harl is the founder of Redneck EdTech and living proof that some of the most important voices in education don’t look like what people expect.
