Hillyard Technical Center hosts district competition

186 students from seven different trade schools competed in a skills competition at Hillyard Technical School on Monday.

The school hosted the Northwest District Skills USA competition, where students can compete and showcase different skills they’ve learned during their time in trade school.

Students competed in areas such as: carpentry, advertising and design, nurse assisting, welding and welding fabrication, collision repair and refinish, IT, automotive, basic CPR and more.

“This is good for students to come in and to showcase what they’ve learned,” said Brian Weed, a lead skill supervisor and carpentry instructor at Hillyard. “It puts them out in front of industry leaders, so our judges are people from the trade.”

After completing the skills portion of the competition, students move on to the leadership competition in Platte City, then to the state tournament in Linn, Mo.

Any student headed to the national competition will compete in Athens, Georgia.

“All their competition is reviewed and graded by judges,” said Weed. “So they’re ranked first and second place in this contest. We’ll move on to state contest in April.”

Hillyard students won’t know if they’ve advances until the end of the week, however, school leaders have high confidence they will.

Weed said the competition is a good partnership for not only students and teachers, but companies in trade industries as well.