HANCEVILLE, Ala. – Wallace State’s Applied Technologies students, faculty and Hanceville Mayor Kenneth Nail joined others across the nation this week to celebrate SkillsUSA Week. Nail signed a proclamation this week at Wallace State, recognizing the college’s participation and leadership within the SkillsUSA family.
The annual celebration represents more than 365,000 SkillsUSA members nationwide and promotes career and technical education (CTE). The week highlights the benefits of the SkillsUSA program in developing personal, workplace and technical skills grounded in academics. It also provides schools with an opportunity to demonstrate how CTE helps prepare local students for college and high-wage, high-demand career fields. More than 4,000 SkillsUSA schools are expected to participate this year.
Wallace State Machine Tool Technology student Stephen Hollis currently maintains the role of parliamentarian for the state’s SkillsUSA student cabinet and wanted to make sure Wallace State recognized the celebration.
“SkillsUSA has helped me take more of an initiative to become a leader in my daily life and not sit behind and wait on others to lead. The SkillsUSA framework encourages responsibility, integrity, and effective personal and workplace skills,” Hollis said. “It’s a great organization to be a part of, and I’m glad Wallace State is a strong advocate for it.”
Wallace State maintains a strong presence on the state and national SkillsUSA levels, producing champions and leaders on an annual basis. The college had three students (Jacob Humphrey, Chase Blakey and Benjamin Brownlee) win gold medals at the national competition last June and a record-high 71 individuals earned a medal at last year’s state competition, including earning 31 gold medals – establishing another record.
“It’s a very exciting time in Alabama. Governor Kay Ivey’s Success Plus plan is focused on creating highly-skilled, high-wage jobs, and SkillsUSA is about producing students for highly-skilled, high-wage jobs. I think for us to recognize this week as SkillsUSA week is not only great for the college, but for our students,” said Dr. Jimmy Hodges, Wallace State’s dean of Applied Technologies. “Our students take pride in representing their college programs, and I think the future is very bright for all career and technical students. Our students are in high demand even before they graduate and being a serious player in SkillsUSA at both the state and national level is a big reason for that.”
For more information about SkillsUSA Week, visit www.skillsusa.org/events-training/skillsusa-week/
For more information about Wallace State, visit www.wallacestate.edu.
