TCC pumpkins show off skills

As Halloween approaches, pumpkins are becoming more common around town and the students at Poplar Bluff Technical Career Center tried their hands at this fall tradition.

Each class took up the challenge to carve a pumpkin relate d to their studies. For instance, one of the Computer Maintenance and Technology classes used the carved out pumpkin to house an operational computer.

Students were given two days with their pumpkins to clean out and carve their pumpkin based on a previously discussed design. The pumpkins went up on display in the TCC entry hall Wednesday through Friday. The pumpkins were donated by the chapter president’s grandma.

DAR/Michael Shine

“If you leave them there very long, they tend to get pretty nasty,” said Jody Cochran, building trades instructor and advisor for the Poplar Bluff SkillsUSA chapter.

During that time, people were able to vote for their favorite pumpkin design by donating canned food. In previous years, the voting has been done with pennies or faculty votes, but this year Cochran suggested finding a way to help the community with it. The morning and afternoon class that receives the most cans will win either a donut or pizza party.

Cochran said the SkillsUSA leadership team plans to donate them to one of the local food banks or charities during the upcoming holidays to aid with the needs. The organization is also hoping to have either another canned food drive or a coat drive within the next month.

“We haven’t decided where they’re going yet. We just wanted to raise them,” Cochran said. “There’s local churches that have food banks, there’s several programs that could use the food.”

Cochran said the students took charge of organizing the contest. The programs were all eager to participate in the project. He said it was about getting the SkillsUSA officers involved and then they got the other students excited. This served as a good opportunity to get the SkillsUSA chapter working together on a project.

While the pumpkins were not required to be related to the program that did each, Cochran said they tried to encourage the classes to do so. For instance, one of Cochran’s classes used pipe to give their pumpkin arms and legs along with a hard hat to make it look like a construction worker.

“A lot of the students up here are creative enough to come up with a design for their program,” he said. “Most of them were oriented toward the program they were in.”