Lovell High School SkillsUSA success goes beyond medals

Lovell High School SkillsUSA members competed at the Wyoming SkillsUSA State Championships in Casper last week, earning multiple medals across a wide range of technical and leadership events.

SkillsUSA is a workforce development organization that helps students build career ready skills through hands-on competitions, leadership opportunities and community involvement.

“SkillsUSA gives students the opportunity to learn real-world skills and apply them in a competitive setting,” said advisor Jode Kraft. “It’s exciting to watch students try something new and then succeed at the state level.”

The Lovell chapter, which includes around 30 members, had 24 students compete at the state competition. Students spent months preparing in areas such as construction, additive manufacturing, advertising design, health care and customer service. 

Lovell had several strong finishes across events. In Advertising Design, Lilly Keele earned a gold medal and Denna Slater earned bronze. Ava Edwards placed bronze in Basic Health Care Skills. Sara Wood earned silver in Customer Service. Elana Schulthuis earned silver in Cabinet Making, a highly competitive and technical event.

Celeste Lindsay earned silver in Early Childhood Education. Addisyn Perkins earned silver in Pin Design, and Janemarie McKay earned gold in T-Shirt Design. In Additive Manufacturing, Hugh Carpenter and Rick Jensen earned silver medals with their 3-D printed catapult. The Community Service team of Randi Ayotte, Petra Jerome and Isaac Sanders also earned silver for their project, which was a highway cleanup.

“We represented our school very well. We had a lot of silvers this year, and while we’re young, those still represent in a very good way. It’s a bit of a building year for us,” advisor Bret George stated.

The Lovell chapter was recognized as the 3A High Point Runner-Up Chapter.

“We’ve been high points chapter for multiple years. … This year we were runner-up, which still says a lot about our kids,” George said.

Gold medalists McKay and Keele qualified to represent Wyoming at the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, which will take place the first week of June.

Community service

In addition to competition success, the chapter has been actively involved in community service throughout the year. Members participated in the hospital Angel Tree program, delivered Valentine’s cards to Care Center residents and contributed to a food drive during the state conference. Kraft said the students’ willingness to serve and represent their school stands out just as much as their competitive success.

“Our members are always willing to give back to the community,” Kraft said. “They represent Lovell High School extremely well at both the state and national level.”

George also highlighted a service project the team completed in Casper. After learning that some students at Casper College were struggling to meet basic food needs, the group stepped in to help support a campus food bank.

“We went to Walmart and spent almost $1,000 of our chapter’s SkillsUSA money that had been contributed by our local donors,” George said. “We didn’t just buy random items. We got their list and specifically targeted what those students needed. We wanted them to have food they might not otherwise have. If you get a little benefit, pass that on to those in need.”

When asked about taking so many students down to a multi-day event, George said, “We didn’t have to ask them to quiet down in the motel. We didn’t have to ask them to behave. We just had an exceptional group of kids.”