South Iowa News

Lukas Moore of Emerson, a May 2022 Southwestern Community College (SWCC) auto collision repair/refinish graduate, placed second nationally, receiving the silver medal in collision repair technology (post-secondary division), during the 2022 SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference, held June 21-23, in Atlanta.

Awards were presented Friday, June 24, to students from across the nation who competed in 108 occupational and leadership skill areas and five demonstration events. 

In addition to Moore, the following students competed and placed in these categories:

• Osten Blevins of Osceola, electrical construction wiring (secondary division), 14th place
• Aiden Evans of Creston, welding sculpture (secondary division), 35th place
• Nate Purdy of Lorimor, electrical construction wiring (post-secondary division), 15th place
• Brandon Raasch of Fontanelle, automotive refinishing technology (secondar division), final results not yet available
• Tyson Smith of Creston, carpentry and building trades (secondary division), 40th place
• Welding Fabrication Team (three-person team consisting of Cole Leuenberg of Waverly, Nebraska; Dylan Swaney of Bedford; and Seth Varellas of Riverton, welding fabrication team (post-secondary division) 20th place

The SkillsUSA Championships is a competition for students enrolled in middle school, high school, and community colleges or postsecondary programs. Each contestant had to qualify to compete and contests run by business and industry to their standards for an entry level employee, and embody the SkillsUSA Framework of personal, workplace and technical skills grounded in academics. Since starting to compete with SkillsUSA in 2009, SWCC has had three national champions—Daniel Leonard, electrical technology in 2016, Joel Hartstack, automotive refinish, in 2017, and Cory Marquardt, high school electrical, in 2018—as well as 16 national place winners.

About SkillsUSA

SkillsUSA is a nonprofit partnership of education and industry founded in 1965 to strengthen our nation’s skilled workforce. Driven by employer demand, SkillsUSA helps students develop necessary personal and workplace skills along with technical skills grounded in academics. This SkillsUSA Framework empowers every student to succeed at work and in life, while helping to close the skills gap in which millions of positions go unfilled. Through SkillsUSA’s championships program and curricula, employers have long ensured schools are teaching relevant technical skills, and with SkillsUSA’s new credentialing process, they can now assess how ready potential employees are for the job. SkillsUSA has members nationwide in high schools, colleges and middle schools, covering over 130 trade, technical and skilled service occupations, and is recognized by the U.S. departments of Education and Labor as integral to career and technical education. We have served 13.9 million members since 1965. For more information: www.skillsusa.org.

_{Source: https://www.swcciowa.edu/news/2022/swcc-collision-repair-student-receives-silver-medal-at-skillsusa-nationals}