Humboldt students excel in Skills USA competition
Humboldt High School students shown at the opening ceremony of the SkillsUSA competition in Des Moines on March 5, from left: Tate Halverson, Owen Stattelman, Lucas Reimers, Eli Spellmeyer, Joel Cowan, Weston Paul, Eli Hinton, Brady Roth, John Blanchard, Riley Wells, Mr. Joel Hanus (advisor) and Lucy Goodenow. Submitted photo.
Humboldt High School students led by instructor Joel Hanus, scored high at the SkillsUSA State Leadership Conference in Des Moines March 5-6 inside the Varied Industries Building on the state fairgrounds.
SkillsUSA is a national workforce development organization for students. It prepares students to become skills professionals, career-ready leaders and responsible community members.
“SkillsUSA emphasizes workplace skills, personal skills and technical skills and their framework. From our Humboldt chapter, we had students compete in masonry, cabinet-making, extemporaneous speaking, sheet metal and we had a team participate in a quiz bowl,” Hanus said.
“We don’t bring projects to the event. Students have to go there and make their project in a given amount of time. Their projects are judged by people from the industry. The masonry competition is hosted by the Masonry Union,” Hanus said.
“One of the local sheet metal and welding unions puts up the sheet metal competitions. Students, in order to compete, have to submit a resume ahead of time and take a written test related to what they are going to compete in,” Hanus said.
Lucy Goodenow, a freshman, placed third in extemporaneous speaking. Riley Wells, a freshman, placed third in the sheet metal competition. Eli Hinton, a freshman, placed second in the sheet metal competition.
The quiz bowl team made up of John Blanchard, Eli Hinton, Lucas Reimers, Lucy Goodenow, Weston Paul and Brady Roth placed second.
“The quiz bowl had technical questions related to the trades, along with chemistry and math questions,” Hanus said. “In masonry we had freshman Joel Cowan place fourth.”
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