Tyler Christire, left, and Leah Somerville recently finished in second place in web design and development at the SkillsUSA competition. Photo courtesy of Skills USA Kentucky.
By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
During the last week of June seven competitors from the Barren County Area Technology Center traveled the five hours to Atlanta, Georgia, to compete in the national SkillsUSA championship — an event that brings together approximately 6,000 state champions from across the United States.
Adviser Lonnie Vincent, who was recently announced as Kentucky’s SkillsUSA Adviser of the Year, said SkillsUSA is an extracurricular organization that focuses more so on technical and trade skills — for example there is an electrical and an HVAC-based competition. According to the organization’s website, the competition featured roughly 2,000 industry volunteers and 115 “skilled and leadership competitions.”
One of those competitions featured two seniors from BCATC, Tyler Christie and Leah Somerville, who, as a team, placed second in web design and development. They beat 21 other teams that competed in the event.
“This is a big accomplishment,” Vincent said. “From what I’m told we haven’t had anyone place at the national level in several years [since 2012].”
The SkillsUSA championship was June 24-28. The group traveled south Monday and competed on Wednesday and Thursday of that week with Friday being reserved for awards.
The web design and development competition featured roughly three sections that included a “wireframe” — essentially an outline — an interview and design portion. Somerville said the competition began around 11 a.m. and went until about 3 p.m. She said she thought they would finish in the Top 10.
“When we saw our names [on the award screen] we kind of lost it,” Somerville said.
Christie and Somerville got a medal for their finish and, according to Vincent, got a medal that will be displayed in the hallway of the school.
In order to compete at nationals a team had to win at the state level.
In other news, BCATC student Taylor Strange was named president of the southern and western portions of Kentucky. She also competed at nationals in architectural design.
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