Student skills shine at state competition

By Lauren White. 

Oregon students showcased impressive talent, leadership and career-ready skills at the SkillsUSA state competition. 

With the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference just around the corner, I started reflecting on my recent experience at the state competition in Oregon just last month. This year was my second time attending and witnessing students from across the state compete in cake decorating, pin design, carpentry, urban search and rescue, among other skills. And making a comeback this year was commercial roofing thanks to Eric, a student at McMinnville High School. 

Eric stumbled into the roofing competition this year. Typically a welding student, he happened to be wearing a Carlson Roofing Company hat to class one day – Eric's dad Mike is the current owner – which sparked a conversation with his teacher and SkillsUSA advisor Mr. Ford. After that, Eric entered the roofing competition under the mentorship of his father. If he decides to pursue roofing in the future, he would be a fifth-generation roofer! 

I was lucky enough to spend the day with Eric and his family; his mom and little brother came to check in on his progress and cheer him on throughout the day. Fellow classmates, competitors and industry professionals also stopped by to see Eric in action. Stationed outside the welding classroom at McMinnville High School I witnessed some of the welding competitions taking place. I’m always so impressed by these students and what they're capable of at such a young age.  

Eric finished strong, completing all of the necessary tasks of his competition, including clean up within the allotted time of four hours. And he is advancing to the national competition taking place June 2-5 in Atlanta, Georgia at the Georgia World Congress Center.  

Hear from Eric about his experience competing: 

Day two of the competition was spent at the Knife River Training Facility in Albany, Oregon. This is where most of the competitions take place, but others like roofing, welding and carpentry take place off site either at schools or different facilities that have the space, materials and equipment necessary for the competitions. Cake decorating, robotics and various soft skills like interviewing, pin and t-shirt design and prepared speech were taking place all throughout the day before the awards ceremony. I was able to catch up with a few educators and advisors I met last year, one of whom is Daniel Langston of Eagle Point High School – they always have a big presence at the state competition. And there are 15 students from Eagle Point who are advancing to the national competition in June! Hear from some of the students from Eagle Point about their experience competing and what SkillsUSA means to them.

I also had the opportunity to speak with three students who are also part of the state officer team, and let me tell you, this was a fun interview! Akshara, Theron and Gayathri were so thoughtful with their answers and had so many interesting insights. A few that stood out were: 

Theron: "SkillsUSA is all about developing leadership skills and workplace skills because all these challenges here today in the competitions, they're all related to a vocation or a career field. But it's more than just preparing you for this specific competition; it’s also preparing you for how to interact with people and how to be a good teammate, be a good manager, how to lead properly. And to me, SkillsUSA is built around making a well-rounded person.” 

Akshara: "I've never met such a wide and diverse group of people until I came to the conference of SkillsUSA. There are industry partners, advisors, students from all over Oregon, and we all have the same common interest: we want to be leaders, we want to be powerful, we’re passionate, and we have this one unifying principle of community.” 

Gayathri: “I feel like it's more of an exploration. There's a wide range of events; you could just try anything you wanted to. I tried cake decorating for fun and next year I might do something that's engineering related.” 

And just next week, thousands of students like the ones in these interviews will head to Atlanta to compete at the national competition. Be sure to tune in on YouTube June 2-4 for live updates from the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference as The Coffee Shops will be reporting live from the Roofing Pavilion, made possible by the National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA) and various industry partners and sponsors. You won’t want to miss it! 

Check out the full playlist for more interviews and insights from the students at the Oregon competition!