Of the 48 students from LakeView Technology Academy who competed at the State SkillsUSA conference in Madison, 16 of them will be headed to compete in the national SkillsUSA event in June.
Competing in Atlanta, Ga., at nationals will be: Cameron Leighty, Kooper Miller, Hunter Robinson, Matilda Petkus, Anna Wilson, Shelby Young, Abigail Zabel, Lilia Trover, Tanvi Aggarwal, Jessica Camacho, Jane Gerstung, Sumaya Hasani, Audrina Tenuta, Samantha Thomas, Sarah Yusuf and Garrison Bryant.
At the state competition, 22 LakeView students made the podium to receive medals in their respective events.
SkillsUSA allows students to compete in career-oriented skill categories and prepares students to be successful after high school in their chosen field.
“It just highlights and underscores the importance of what these kids do and the work that they put in,” said LakeView SkillsUSA Adviser Madelyn LaCroix. “I mean these aren’t kids who just woke up on a Sunday morning and said, ‘I think I’m going to do this.’ These were kids who really thought hard about what they wanted to do, looked into what that took and saw that through.”
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LakeView’s longtime SkillsUSA adviser Kristi Koschkee said a large amount of preparation goes into the competitions, including fundraising, workshops and mock contests.
“We did one big resume writing workshop,” she said. “All of our students have to have a resume when they go to State, and for nationals that becomes part of their score. Every SkillsUSA member (at LakeView) right now has a functional resume that they can take with them and use throughout the years and make changes as they see fit.”
LaCroix said her favorite part of the national competition is “really seeing kids at that competitive level, (along with those from) other states and other schools.”
“Then you can gauge where your kids are at for next year,” she said. “You can take the judges’ feedback and bring it to your chapter in the fall.”
Koschkee said her favorite part is “seeing the kids outside of school, watching them interact with each other, meeting people from other states.”
“It’s just nice to watch them enjoy the spoils of all the hard work that they put in all year,” she said.
In addition to students excelling and going to the national competition, LaCroix and Koschkee said they also enjoy students improve every year and excel at competitions.
“Watching the kids that just gain that sense of confidence, you kind of see that over time, and kids become very good speakers and more confident speaking in front of peers and in front of groups,” Koschkee said. “Those are kind of the unspoken things about SkillsUSA that kids get out of it.”
State officer, awards
Shelly Nash of LakeView won an election for state SkillsUSA officer for the upcoming school year. She will be the SkillsUSA state reporter, a part of the state leadership team that leads all Wisconsin SkillsUSA teams.
The following students from LakeView received awards at the state conference:
Tyrone Chen took third in the Computer Programming competition.
Cameron Leighty, Kooper Miller, and Hunter Robinson took gold in the team Engineering Technology/Design competition.
Matilda Petkus, Anna Wilson, Shelby Young, and Abigail Zabel took gold in the team Entrepreneurship competition.
Lilia Trover took first and Karis Bryant took second in the Job Skill Demonstration A competition.
Rebecca Wait took second in the Medical Math competition.
Eshan Patel took third in the Medical Terminology competition.
Tanvi Aggarwal, Jessica Camacho, Jane Gerstung, Sumaya Hasani, Audrina Tenuta, Samantha Thomas, and Sarah Yusuf took the gold in the Opening and Closing ceremonies competition.
Garrison Bryant took first and Jake Thomas took second in the Prepared Speech competition.
Destiny Garcia took second in the T-Shirt Design competition.
At KTEC High School, Blake Krauter and Aiden Tosch took second in the team Commercial SUAS Drone Demonstration.
Tremper High School student Ryan Plotner took third in the 3D Printing and Design competition.