BLOOMINGDALE -- Students at Jefferson County Joint Vocational School have advanced to the SkillsUSA Ohio State Championships after succeeding at the regional competition.
More than a dozen students finished well at southeast regional contests held throughout February, with the most recent on Feb. 24 at the Mid-East Career Technical Center in Zanesville.
The electrical construction wiring contest was held off-site at the electrical trades center in Columbus and the welding competition was conducted on Feb. 10 at the Mideast CTC-Buffalo Campus in Senecaville.
Earning gold in their respective categories were cosmetology student Cambrie Wilson for Job Skills Demo A, electrical trades student Nathan Long for electrical construction wiring and welding student J.D. Koran for welding.
Among the silver medal recipients were auto collision technology student Mason Sedgmer for automotive refinishing and electrical trades student Jacob Gilboa for related technical math.
Bronze medalists were auto collision tech students Savannah Bookman for automotive refinishing and Lexis Kloeker for collision repair, cosmetology student Kyley Sherbondy for cosmetology and computer networking student Charles Johnson for information technology.
Additionally, straight-to-state students include auto collision tech student Laela White for auto damage appraisal, electrical trades student Wyatt Scheel for industrial motor control and heavy equipment operation students Nathan Crawford, Brodie Yeager and Emma Rusciano.
Auto collision tech instructor Russell Achhammer, who co-advises the school's SkillsUSA program with automotive service tech instructor Ron Reasoner, said the JVS has always performed well at events.
"We had quite a few people place to go to Columbus on April 9," said Achhammer. "Historically since COVID, this is among the highest numbers we've gotten. We're getting back to a normal year with what we had."
The SkillsUSA Ohio State Championships, which are slated for Tuesday and Wednesday, bring more than 5,000 competitors, business and industry partners, instructors and vendors together in more than 100 contests that cover 16 career pathways to showcase career technical education in the state.