| Local students national Skills USA winners |
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| Thursday, 06 August 2009 | ||
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Staff writer Two local college students’ work won them first place in the Television (Video) Production contest at the National Leadership and Skills Conference and SkillsUSA Championships.
Winners received medallions and often receive tools and/or scholarships to further their careers and education. Both students attend Hennepin Technical College and were required to enter the SkillsUSA competition at the school as part of their portfolio production class. “We really didn’t have high hopes for it,” Esterling said about the competition. He said they were surprised when they won at the local and state levels, planning to just have fun at the national competition. The team didn’t expect to take home any awards. Teams in the national competition were required to make a one-minute promotional spot for an area in Kansas City. Students used their own equipment and were given one hour to shoot footage and another two hours to edit their video. Time was tight, especially with the editing process and the local team, according to Esterling, barely got the edits done in time. In fact, last-minute edits using a different program, were completed by Esterling and Carlon, however the pair unknowingly turned in the wrong version of their spot. And on the final day when all the videos were shown, Carlon and Esterling thought the error had cost them. “We didn’t think we had a shot at it,” Esterling said. But the pair was wrong and judges awarded them first place. “It was a lot of fun,” Esterling said about the entire experience. The SkillsUSA Championships is for high school and college level students who are members of SkillsUSA. More than 5,000 student from every state and three territories competed in 91 contests in technical, skilled and service occupations. To qualify for the national competition, students competed in local and state contests. The state gold medal winners advanced to the national SkillsUSA Championships. The SkillsUSA Championships is considered the largest single day of corporate volunteerism in American and is valued at $35 million in industry support of donated time, equipment, cash and material. All contests are run and judged by industry professionals using industry standards for employment. Kelly Johnson is at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it |
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