Julia Gilbreath, Tufe Uslu, Madison Palmer and Cash Welch at the SkillsUSA conference in Atlanta. Courtesy Photo

A small group of Wylie East students, along with one Wylie High School student, joined an elite group of their peers at the recent SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference.

The national competition, held June 19-23 in Atlanta, Georgia, is considered the “showcase for the best career and technical education students in the nation,” reports Skills USA.

“The convention features the SkillsUSA Championships, Skills USA continued, “where approximately 10,000 state champions in middle school, high school, and college from across the nation compete head-to-head for bronze, silver and gold medals in over 100 trade, technical and leadership competitions.”

Competitions spanned a variety of skillsets including welding, construction, robotics technology, law enforcement, culinary and much more, as well as leadership events like the SkillsUSA Opening and Closing Ceremony and prepared speech. 

To qualify to attend this event, first-place winners from an individual’s state event could attend and represent their state in that contest.

According to SkillsUSA, the nonprofit is a “national partnership of students, teachers, and industry working together to ensure America has a skilled workforce.”

National membership is 320,000 student members and only 2% make it to the National Conference. Ninety percent of its members are high school students. Middle school represents 1% and college represents 9%.

Wylie East Skills USA advisor David Lanman reported that Wylie East High School students Madison Palmer and Julia Gilbreath (Class of 2023), along with junior Tufe Uslu, placed second, winning silver medals in the Crime Scene Investigation contest. The team represented Texas against 36 other states in this contest.

“The team was required to process a crime scene by taking photographs, measurements and marking evidence,” reported Lanman. “Then as a group, process evidence related to fingerprints and footprints.” Additional requirements included demonstrating their individual skills by separately lifting a fingerprint from an item, doing a presumptive blood test to determine if the blood was human or using an alternate light source to discover evidence on an item. 

“The team then regrouped to compare notes and information to write individual reports on their actions processing the crime scene,” Lanman said.

Wylie East freshman Cash Welch participated in the Action Skills contest where he presented a 5–7-minute demonstration on preparing metal to weld. 

“Cash’s presentation earned him 7th in the nation in this contest,” Lanman said.

Morrison Goldade from Wylie High School also had a second-place team in a robotics competition. The challenge required a two-person team to demonstrate the operation of a five-axis servo-robot along with a set of sensors and motorized devices to resolve a production process problem.

Also at the convention, the students participated in the SkillsUSA Community Service Project helping to build 100 bicycles for the Big Brothers Big Sisters Club of Atlanta.

“Nationals has been one of the best experiences of my life, from meeting people to competing and everything in between,” Cash said. “For a lack of a better words, it was amazing!”

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