Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
Career and Technical Education – CTE – students at Pocahontas County High School can join SkillsUSA and compete at the state and national levels in their field of study. Whether it’s welding, carpentry, business or culinary, there’s something for all those students with a competitive edge and skill.
This year, welding teacher Justin Kerr and carpentry teacher Jonathan Taylor took several students to the Skills USA state competition in Fairmont, where the students went up against peers from across the state in both skill-based and leadership events.
“We had one third place winner and five fourth places,” Taylor said.
Freshman Nadiya Kerr took third place in the job interview, which was a great feat considering she was going up against upperclassmen, Taylor explained.
“They could choose the career they wanted to do,” he said. “She wanted to do political reporting.”
Kerr did the job interview which had questions specific to that job.
The TeamWorks crew – Colton Cover, Devon George, Shane VanMeter and Nathaniel Wimer – got fourth place, and Ramona Hardy got fourth place, as well, in related technical math.
“TeamWorks – technically, one is supposed to be electrician, one is plumber, one masonry and one carpenter,” Taylor said. “But they are allowed to work together as a group. I train them in all the trades and they decide what they want to do.
“They did great,” he continued. “Time-wise, they finished first, but they got fourth place. They went too fast and didn’t have the quality. I think the top five was within ten points of each other. It was a very tight race. Two of them plan on going back and competing again.”
Although the team didn’t break the top three, one student was so impressive, he was asked to attend nationals as a demonstrator.
“Devon George is going to Georgia,” Taylor said. “NRCA [National Roofing Contractors Association] contacted me and asked if I wanted Devon to go to nationals to be in a demonstration competition for commercial roofing. He’s been competing for four years. He earned the right to get there.”
At this point, George is only going to demonstrate, but Taylor said if the NRCA can recruit a total of 20 students to come, it will be a competition.
Other students who competed were Shayla Bennet in tooling ID; Colton White in individual carpentry; Devon Burgess in technical related math; R.T. Hill in individual introductory welding; Luke Gainer in welding fabrication; Morgan Beverage in welding fabrication; and Colton Taylor in welding fabrication.
Kerr and Taylor said the students did really well and several are ready to compete next year.
One thing they try to remind the students, if they get down-hearted about losing, is that they are going against much larger schools, several of which have CTE centers that have more classes.
For example, Taylor teaches carpentry, plumbing, masonry and electrical all in one, while at CTE centers, those four skills would be taught in separate classes.
Although most of the competitors from PCHS this year were in carpentry or welding, Kerr said that Skills USA is for all CTE courses.
“Even FFA can do Skills,” he said. “They actually have a portion for those in FFA. FFA does a really great job. This is more, in my opinion, it’s more of a situation that if you have someone that’s done well in one thing for the FFA directly, they can also jump into Skills and participate in those competitions, as well.”
The same goes for students in FBLA – Future Business Leaders of America. There is a state and national competition through FBLA, but business students can also compete with Skills USA.
SkillsUSA is even open to students who are not in CTE courses. Those wanting to compete in the skill-based events, like welding, carpentry and culinary, need to take the classes, but those interested in the leadership events don’t have to be enrolled in CTE courses to join and compete.
The national competition is in Atlanta, Georgia, this year, and Taylor will accompany George for the week-long event.
