MTI students clean up at national competition

BRADENTON — For the seventh straight year, Manatee Technical Institute students won more medals than any other school in the nation at the 46th Annual SkillsUSA Championships in Kansas City. Of the 942 medals awarded, Florida students took home 109 of them. MTI students won 61.

MTI brought home 25 gold, 23 silver and 13 bronze medals.

The SkillsUSA Championships are a showcase for the best career and technical education students in the nation. Students work against the clock and each other, proving their expertise in occupations like air-conditioning, entrepreneurship, criminal justice, and web design. According to students who compete, the SkillsUSA Championships are like the Olympics for career and technical education.

One of the five new contests this year was Welding Art Sculpture, and MTI student Wesley Johnson took the bronze.

The SkillsUSA Championships began in 1967 and has grown to more than 5,600 students competing in 96 skill, technical and leadership fields. Nearly 1,500 judges and contest organizers from labor and management make the national contests possible.

The championships were held June 21-25. The theme for this year’s contests was “Champions at Work, Connecting the Opportunities.”

At the same time that 140 MTI students were competing at the SkillsUSA national competition, 23 MTI health occupations students were competing at the HOSA national competition. The MTI East Campus students won 10 medals, setting a record for the school.

The MTI East Campus took part in the 2010 Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) National Leadership Conference in Orlando, June 22 through 26 at Disney’s Coronado Springs Conference Center. On June 26, 10 of them earned first, second, or third-place national postsecondary medals while eight more were recognized as among the top 10 in the nation.

This conference was the largest HOSA NLC on record with approximately 7,000 in attendance. Each of the students competed in various health-related or leadership events to showcase their skills and talents developed during their health-career preparation programs at MTI.

MTI HOSA Chapter Advisor Kim Bland said that while the members were there to compete with hopes of winning a medal, all came away realizing that it is the process rather than the final result that is the most important and most respected part of the experience.

MTI HOSA NLC Medal Winners:

n Gold Medals, all for Medical Reading — Surgical Technology Program: Heather Allen, Tiffany Gardner and Angela Pierce;

n Silver Medals: Lindsay Willey, Dental Assisting; Ashleigh Franklin, Dental Spelling; Kellie Kilppel, Dental Terminology; Harley Kroll, Creative Problem Solving — Massage Therapy Program; Darius Maboudi, Creative Problem Solving — Massage Therapy Program; Jonathan Robinson, Creative Problem Solving — Paramedic Program.

n Bronze Medal: Rachel Flenniken, Dental Spelling.

For complete results, visit http://www.skillsusa.org/compete/results.shtml.