The talents of numerous students at Mishicot High School will be on full display at a competition aimed at showcasing the trades.
Fox Valley Technical College is hosting the SkillsUSA Regional Competition this Friday (February 21st), and Mishicot has seven students listed to compete.
Kyle Junk, a Tech Ed Teacher at the school, formed the Mishicot Chapter last year, and has grown to include around 20 students on the team.
He praised SkillsUSA noting, “There’s close to 50 different competitions that exist within Skills USA, so students get to do a little bit of anything that they want to and what they’re most interested in.”
Junior Darren Smith made the trip to FVTC last year, bringing with him experience in the welding, diesel mechanic, and power equipment competitions.
“Fox Valley was pretty good last year,” he recalled. “I did diesel mechanic there. I got second. There is a lot of new stuff that I learned while I was there. It’s pretty fun though.”
Smith is currently working with Maritime Plumbing, putting his wide array of skills to work.
Sophomore Devin Schleis also competed last year in the power and agriculture mechanics section.
He noted that the competition covered a wide array of topics.
“We first went there, they had chainsaws there and we had to do like normal, like maintenance on it and answer some questions and find stuff in the service manual,” he explained. “They had some tool ID and parts from engines, an electricity section, and then at the end we took our written test.”
This year, Schleis told us he will be doing the diesel mechanic segment, and is pursuing a career in construction or agriculture.
Karly Klein has her eyes set on getting into the welding industry.
Last year she was in the welding competition, and this year she is doing the welding sculpture challenge, which offers unique challenges.
“If you are in the welding competition, when you get there, you’ll get a blueprint and you have to build that while you’re there and then take a written test,” she explained. “For the welding sculpture, you’re going to build it at school or at home…bring it there, do an interview, make a portfolio, and there’s possibly a written test.”
For her sculpture, Klein made a cobra out of a pipe and washers.
This experience has aided Klein in her pursuit of a career in welding as she is currently working at Burger Boat as a part of the Youth Apprenticeship program.
Junk called SkillsUSA a great way for students to try their hand in a variety of trade skills while also expanding their network of contacts within the trade industry.
