Casper College awards scholarships to Skills USA winners
After another successful year of hosting the three-day Wyoming SkillsUSA Championship, Casper College presented 17 gold medal high school winners, each a $2,000 scholarship from the school.
The 17 students who received scholarships and the category in which they took gold during the championship are: Makaylee Robles, a sophomore at Rock Springs High School, for architectural drafting; Ryan Olson, a senior at Thunder Basin High School in Gillette, for automotive refinishing; Brody Leerssen, a junior at Sheridan High School, for cabinet making; Jace Perry, a senior at Star Valley High School from Smoot, for carpentry; Ethan Green, a sophomore at Rock Springs High School for computer numerical control programming; Bo Penfield, a junior at Big Piney High School for manual machining; Brayden Moody from South High School in Cheyenne for nursing assisting; Michael Hernandez, a senior at Big Piney High School for photography; Landis Zebroski, a senior from Sheridan High School for technical drafting; Jackson Berg, a senior from Kelly Walsh High School in Casper for high school welding advanced; and three juniors from KWHS, Dallan Harvey, Hunter Schnepper, and Hyrum Heward for team event welding fabrication.
Other winners included Corbin Dow from Sheridan High School for welding sculpture, Celeste Lindsay from Lovell High School for early childhood education, Hailee Myers and Sydney Saltzman from Star Valley High School for team event digital camera, and Kody Griffin from Riverton High School for automotive service.
During the competition, students worked against the clock, proving their expertise in occupations such as electronics, computer-aided drafting, precision machining, automotive service, medical assisting, and culinary arts, according to SkillsUSA. All contests were run with the help of industry experts, trade associations, and labor organizations and tested competencies set by professional industry standards. The winners will go on to compete in the national SkillsUSA Championships this June in Atlanta.
SkillsUSA is a nonprofit partnership of education and industry founded in 1965 to strengthen the nation’s skilled workforce. Driven by employer demand, SkillsUSA helps students develop necessary personal and workplace skills along with technical skills grounded in academics. This SkillsUSA Framework empowers every student to succeed at work and in life while helping to close the skills gap in which millions of positions go unfilled. Through SkillsUSA’s championships program and curricula, employers have long ensured schools are teaching relevant technical skills. With SkillsUSA’s new credentialing process, they can now assess how ready potential employees are for the job. SkillsUSA has members nationwide in high schools, colleges, and middle schools, covering over 130 trade, technical, and skilled service occupations, and is recognized by the U.S. Departments of Education and Labor as integral to career and technical education. SkillsUSA has served 14.2 million members since 1965. For more information, click here.