Senior Luke Cook and his classmates at the Poplar Bluff Technical Career Center are working their way to success with nearly a dozen earning medals at the SkillsUSA State Competition at Linn State Technical College earlier this month.
Among those who placed, eight were awarded gold medals and received prizes including a scholarship amounting to between $1,000 and $2,000 to attend LSTC and an invitation to the SkillsUSA National Competition to be held this summer in Louisville, Ky.
First place winners from Poplar Bluff who will advance to the national competition are Cook, Hailey Garrett, Jeramiah Garcia, Nick Lloyd, Lara Pierce, Nickalas Richards, Lane White and Levi White.
Other top placements were awarded to Brooke Francisco, Michaelyn Hatton and Tara Hutchinson.
According to TCC Director Charles Kinsey, 11 is the highest number of winners from the vocational school in recent memory.
Cook and his four-person Building Trades team took fourth place at last year's state competition. This year, the students used what they learned in 2017 to bring home a first-place win.
In four hours, Cook's team built a structure containing all the necessary elements of a house, he said. They set framework, added electricity and plumbing and laid bricks along the exterior wall of the project.
"The first year we did it, we were a little nervous," he explained. "We had a presentation we had to do over our basic plan and we were nervous about that, but we stuck together and tried to continue to work as a team as much as we could."
Going into this year's competition, Cook said, they "were much more prepared."
"We planned it out a little further ahead, but all in all, we just used teamwork to try and make sure that we could get everything we needed to get done, done," he said.
To prepare for the June competition, Cook said his team is practicing their skills by working on the ongoing Building Trades class project house currently under construction. Once complete, it will be placed on the market and made available to buyers.
"Right now, we're doing vinyl siding because at nationals we have to do vinyl siding and Mr. (Jody) Cochran is trying to find a mason to come in and work with us," Cook said. "Then I think we're going to take two days, which I think is the amount of time we'll have at nationals, to do a practice run in the classroom."
Cook said after graduation, he plans to become a lineman and the other members of his team also plan to further develop skills in a trade.
"We all really enjoy the field. Mr. Cochran's taught us a lot. We all really enjoy his class and we're looking forward to the national competition," Cook said.
Cochran, the building trades instructor and senior advisor for SkillsUSA, said the group of 30 PBTCC students who traveled to the state competition are unique.
"This is an exceptional, well-balanced group of kids that are here to learn," Cochran said. "To make it to state or nationals speaks for our school system and lets people know what kind of education they can get out here."
Senior Lara Pierce competed in Aesthetics, which incorporates facials, makeup and fantasy makeup application.
"I'm mostly into special effects makeup and design," Pierce said.
To prepare for the state conference, Pierce said, she wrote plans detailing what she wanted to do and practiced performing the skills for more than a week leading up to the event.
"I was more excited than nervous," she said. "I was excited about the opportunity to go to state and to think that I may have won and I didn't know at the time..."
To prep for nationals, Pierce said she has increased her practice time and will focus on adding new techniques to enhance her performance.
After high school, Pierce said she plans to pursue a career in Dermatology and Aesthetics.
"Cosmetology has helped me with a lot of stuff but it has also helped me decide what I want to do in life. People who think cosmetology is an easy field, it's not. It's very challenging; a fun challenge, but still a challenge all the same," she added.
Students bound for Louisville began last week raising money to help offset expenses for uniform, registration and travel, Cochran said. He feels the trip is a great networking opportunity for the students.
"When you're getting national recognition -- the top of the top -- there are trade people set up wanting to hire these students," Cochran said. "There are folks retiring and lots of spots opening and opportunities to make good money and have a good job for a long time."
Cochran began teaching Building Trades in 2014 after a career in the industry as a contractor. He said he enjoys advising the students in SkillsUSA and hopes to bring attention to the career-focused club, which he compared to student-group Future Farmers of America.
More than 1,000 trade associations and labor unions actively support SkillsUSA through financial aid, in-kind contributions and involvement of their people in SkillsUSA activities, according to its website.