SkillsUSA W.Va. students compete in everything from cookies to electrical motors

Mar. 25—RACHEL — A little good-spirited competition can go a long way.

Starting Friday and continuing all throughout the weekend, high school juniors and seniors competed, learned and showcased their skills in different aspects of career technical education as part of the SkillsUSA West Virginia state competition.

Hosted for the second year in a row at Fairmont State University, the itinerary for the students has expanded far out from just the campus on Locust Avenue and into the surrounding technical centers, with competitions taking place a MTEC in Morgantown, United Technical Center in Clarksburg and the Marion County Technical Center next door to North Marion High.

Friday, students were hard at work at Marion County Technical Center on a number of challenges, the two highest stakes being the Baking & Pastry Arts and Industrial Motor Control.

The Industrial Motor Control competition ran from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. with students having a complicated project to complete from scratch with nothing but the components given to them along with a schematic drawing for the build.

Around five hours into the competition, the students were well underway in constructing a garage door motor that must be fully-functional by 3 p.m. The competition took place inside the classroom of Jeff Greenly, MCTC's electrical program teacher.

Greenly said he's always excited to see these students excel at SkillsUSA, the main reason being that he was a gold medalist electrician himself when he was in high school.

"There's a lot of pride involved and there's a lot of testing yourself against other kids and realizing, 'Hey I can really do this,'" Greenly said. "This event also provides a lot of networking. There are advisors and corporate sponsors that might be scouting out talent. There's always the plus of having this competition on your resume, that's never a bad thing."

The competition space was near-silent as the students diligently wired and worked on their motor projects. The only occasional sound was the whirl of a screw gun to tighten down a bracket.

Down the hall from the quiet of the electrical shop, was an opposing scene. In the kitchen of the MCTC's culinary program, young chefs in their kitchen attire darted between workstations with mixers humming and ingredients scattered across tables.

This was the Baking & Pastry Arts competition. The five students competing Friday were tasked with making 24 biscuits, 24 chocolate chip cookies, an apple pie and decorate a cake, all in three and a half hours.

Then the students were judged on taste and appearance.

"These students will hopefully be taking away some leadership skills, some organizational skills and also some independency when working by themselves," ProStart Instructor Todd Stalnaker said. "Then there's the aspect of communication and public speaking. It goes beyond baking a cake, there are a lot of different aspects."

Overseeing the kitchen was Barbara Boardman, a volunteer who's been involved with SkillsUSA for 46 years. This year, she's acting as a judge in the kitchen.

She's been involved with SkillsUSA since she herself was a student going through the program as a junior at the Roan-Jackson Technical Center just outside of Ripley. From there, she has volunteered and worked with SkillsUSA most years since.

One of her favorite aspects of being a judge is seeing all the ways the students can benefit from the competition.

"It takes [these students] a lot of courage to go out and do something like this and even if they don't advance on to the nationals, just getting them here is phenomenal," Boardman said. "There are so many things that SkillsUSA encompasses: leadership, teamwork, community engagement, communication. I could go on and on... but I'm grateful to the community for seeing the value in these technical programs."

Reach David Kirk at 304-367-2522 or by email at dkirk@timeswv.com.