Susan Allen
(8/7) Five Catoctin High School students
were among 19 Frederick County Career and
Technology students who competed recently in
the National SkillsUSA Championships in Kansas
City, Mo. Four of them placed in the top 10
nationally in their skills contests, as did 11
others from the county.
Elyssa Cool and Myra Derbyshire received
third place bronze medals in the fields of
First Aid/CPR and Prepared Speech
respectively. Seth Sweeney placed sixth in
Employment Application while Tyler Bennett and
his partner Derek Hink from Linganore High
School placed tenth in TV/Video Production.
Eric Hamrick competed in computer-assisted
Architectural Design. All Maryland students
who ranked in 4th-10th places received a
certificate of achievement from the state
SkillsUSA program.
This was Cool’s second trip to the national
contest. In 2006 she competed in Nursing
Assisting and finished eighth. Since then she
has qualified as an emergency medical
technician and graduated from CHS. In June she
received the Dr. George Morningstar
scholarship from the Emmitsburg Lions Club.
She is enrolled at Frederick Community College
to study for a degree as a paramedic. Her
career goal is to become a flight paramedic.
“Kansas City is so much fun…tall buildings and
fountains everywhere.”
Myra Derbyshire, a rising senior at CHS who
plans a career in business, studies marketing
at Career Tech and “thought I’d try public
speaking” because the program includes working
with Toastmasters and the Rotary Club. Kansas
City “was beautiful,” she said, “a good
culture shock.” The organizers planned lots of
activities, including a mixer with music and
games, and “just enough free time” to meet
others and explore the city a bit.
Sixth-place finisher Seth Sweeney said “it
was a lot of hard work” putting together a
book of his classroom preparation and
completed work from Career Tech. The project
was one part of his qualification process for
the Employment Application category. But the
trip to Kansas City, including a visit to a
music park, was “really great.”
Reflecting on their experiences, all the
Catoctin students rated meeting fellow
competitors from other states and U. S.
Pacific and Caribbean territories as the
highlight of their trip. As in the Olympics,
participants arrived in Kansas City wearing
T-shirts and bearing pins with an original
state design. Trading the pins was a favorite
free-time activity. “Everyone wanted to get
one from Hawaii or Guam,” said Tyler Bennett,
who added that the “whole thing was a blast!”
A baseball fan, he especially enjoyed the
chance to go to a Kansas City Royals game,
amazed to find “a waterfall in center field”
in “the city of waterfalls.” Bennett and his
partner had to create a promotional television
advertisement for a randomly selected local
attraction, a three-day assignment which
included on-site filming at Kansas City’s
Steamboat Museum.
Eric Hamrick was “disappointed at first”
about finishing out of the top ten, but
enjoyed the competition itself. He learned
from other students that the Maryland Skills
USA program is more challenging than that in
some states, because students must compete at
local, regional, and state level to qualify
for the national championship. Hamrick also
graduated in June, and will be attending the
University of Maryland, “probably” majoring in
architecture.
The National Skills USA event is the
showcase for the best career and technical
students in the nation. More than 5,000
students participated in eighty-seven
technical and leadership contests in Kansas
City. Frederick County’s Career and Technology
Center offers twenty-four career-specific
programs for students in grades 10-12.
