From building professional-grade cabinets to cooking up a five-star gourmet meal, five Maine-Endwell students put their trades knowledge to the test in late April, at the New York Skills USA competition. Representing Broome-Tioga BOCES Career & Technical Education, these M-E high schoolers competed against dozens of teams from throughout the state in a hands-on, timed competition at the Expo Center in Syracuse. Skills USA is a nationally-renown workforce development organization for students.
It empowers kids to become skilled professionals, career-ready leaders, and responsible community members. This year, five students competed in five separate competitions. James Craig, a Building Trades student, competed in the plumbing contest, Micah Gray, a Carpentry II student, competed in the cabinet-making contest, Michael Hostetler, a Culinary student, competed in the restaurant services contest, Parker Johnson, another Carpentry II student, competed in the carpentry contest, and Shayla Limbert, a Video Production student, competed in the video production contest.
These five students scored at the top of their competition categories at the regional round to make it to the state finals – an incredible achievement in the world of trades, and a massive honor in their educational careers.
Students in the Career & Technical Education program at BOCES attend classes in the trades that could potentially land them jobs immediately following graduation, should they choose to pursue them. For Micah Gray, a senior, it was the perfect program to join.
“It’s a really cool opportunity to not just have the typical school environment, and learn something else, and get to meet other kids from other schools and see how everyone comes together for that,” said Gray.
Gray has had an interest in hands-on learning for as long as he can remember.
“I’ve always had an interest in building since I was little playing with Legos. I like having something to show for what I do,” said Gray.
With a growing interest in the carpentry field, Gray entered the cabinet-making competition, a challenging, timed contest, involving building a bookcase cabinet from scratch in less than five hours.
“We had blueprints to go off of. A lot of it was knowledge that you need to have to do it, and skills that we’ve learned at BOCES to put to use there,” said Gray.
When the five hours concluded, following deliberations from the judges on the panel, Gray earned a gold medal in the competition, scoring 1st in the state, and now heads to Nationals in the Skills USA competition.
“It’s cool to do it two years in a row, but I would be the first to win Nationals if I could do that,” said Gray.
A big goal, but one Gray remains confident in achieving. We are excited to see our students’ interest in the trades continue to grow, and we are so excited for the opportunities we can provide both in-house, and through our partners at Broome-Tioga BOCES. We wish Micah the best of luck as he heads to Atlanta, Georgia for the National competition next month.
Our five Skills USA competitors will be honored at the next school board meeting on Thursday, May 8th.