Students return from nationals; bring home the medals

This archived article was written by: CEU PR office

Five College of Eastern Utah students returned with medals from the 2008 Skills USA national competition held at Kansas City, Md., last summer.
 SkillsUSA is the national organization for students in trade, industrial, technical and health occupations education.   It sponsors the SkillsUSA Championships annually to recognize the achievements of career and technical education students and to encourage them to strive for excellence and pride in their chosen occupations.
 The national competition is held annually to provide students with national-level competition in 91 different areas of technical education.   The contestants represent the 300,000 members from all 50 states and four territories, but only two percent are invited to the national competition.   Each representative has won a gold medal in their particular area on the state level.
 CEU was represented in this year’s competition by six students, competing in the areas of welding, cosmetology and automotive technology.
 Mason Winters (Jensen, Utah) of the CEU welding department took the gold in post secondary welding.   “Since College of Eastern Utah students began competing at SkillsUSA in 2001, they have continually improved their standings.   In 2001 CEU’s representative finished seventh, sixth in 2003, fourth in 2004, fourth in 2005, second in 2006, second in 2007 and finally reached the gold medal stand in 2008,” CEU Welding instructor Lon Youngberg said.
   A team made up of Josh Critchlow (Price, Utah), Riley Harrison (Vernal, Utah), and Nick Richens (Vernal, Utah) competed in a newly created category called team welding fabrication.   Their result mirrored Mason’s as they collectively walked away with the gold.
 Danielle Christensen (Manti, Utah) came home with the silver medal for customer service in cosmetology.
 Quinn Holliday (Blanding, Utah) also represented CEU in the action skills portion of the automotive technology competition.