MOSES LAKE — It seems like everybody is talking about students going to state. Wrestling, basketball, swimming — all the state tournaments have been a topic of discussion. But not every state competition involves coaches and locker rooms. 

The Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center, or CBTECH, will send 25 students to Washington state’s SkillsUSA State Leadership and Skills Conference March 27-29, the largest contingent the school has ever sent. The SkillsUSA allows students to compete in 92 different skill areas, anything from cabinetmaking to nail care to T-shirt design. 

“It covers everything,” said CBTECH Culinary Instructor Nathan Bathurst. “My class does baking and culinary arts. The welding class has two or three different welding competitions. The criminal justice (class) has a criminal justice competition. Then there's things like speech and job interviewing and leadership, a lot of soft skills-type competitions … If you could think of a competition, they probably have it.” 

CBTECH will also send students from the automotive and firefighting programs, Bathurst said. Most of the competitions will be held at Clover Park Technical College in Lakewood, south of Tacoma, except for firefighting, which will be at Central Pierce Fire Station 60 in Spanaway. 

“(For firefighting) it’s how fast can they get dressed, and did they roll the hose correctly? In an emergency situation, the hose unrolls really fast (and) they need to be able to prove that they have that skill. There's a lot of knot tying and safety harness stuff, hard skills that firefighters need."

Last year, a CBTECH fire science student took first place in first aid CPR and went on to the national competition, said CBTECH Director Christine Armstrong. 

The students’ journey to this point began with smaller competitions at CBTECH, Bathurst said. The winners of those went to the regional competitions at various points around Central Washington: automotive students to Newport, criminal justice in Walla Walla and firefighting and culinary at CBTECH. 

The state competition is a big event, Armstrong said, 4,000-5,000 people counting students, teachers and parents. Students will take the bus to Seattle Thursday and stay at the Hilton Doubletree Seattle Airport. That evening, according to the Skills USA Washington website, they’ll hear a presentation by Shea Booster, a leadership consultant and former Future Farmers of America national vice president. Competitions will begin bright and early at 7:30 Friday morning and run until 5 p.m. Saturday awards will be given out and students will find out which of them will go to the national competition in Atlanta in June. 

The winners at the state and national levels get more out of it than just bragging rights, Armstrong and Bathurst said.

“it looks great on a resume,” Armstrong said. “It looks great on any application form if you went to state or you went to Nationals for SkillsUSA, because anybody who's in a (vocational) area knows what that means, and it's pretty special.” 

“At the state level, there's a lot of sponsorship from industries, and there's a lot of incentives for kids to be there and compete,” Bathurst said. “We had a kid (who) won a $500 welder … At the national level, there's bigger incentives. If you do really well, you can get thousands of dollars worth of prizes.” 

One of his students placed third last year and was offered a $1,000 scholarship to a culinary school, Barthurst added. 

“It's a fantastic opportunity for students to see what competition on a state level looks like, and sometimes even a national level,” Armstrong said. 

CBTECH Competitors:

Baking      

Monique Martinez

Jocelynne Bong 

Criminal Justice 

Anais Ayala 

Culinary 

Tobias Smith 

Marcus Peterson 

Lillyanne Kappel-Baker 

Extemporaneous Speech      

Ethan Ogle 

Emmanuel Zepeda-Lopez 

Firefighting 

Zander Leasher 

Mylee Dana 

Dehlila Diaz 

First Aid 

Jerzey Nuetzhorn 

Adan Moreno 

Brooke Dana 

Ceri Perkins 

Kora Preston 

Firefighting 

Isai Gutierrez 

Katelyn Fretwell 

Metal Art 

Mikayla Friedbauer 

Karson Kowallis 

Automotive Maintenance and Light Repair 

Grason Padilla 

David Couture 

Roan Prentice 

Tyler Jolley 

    From left: Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center automotive students Grason Padillae, David Couture and Roan Prentice took first, second and third place respectively at the regional SkillsUSA competition. They’ll move on to state March 27-29.
  

    Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center fire science student Kora Preston gets checked over at the regional SkillsUSA competition at CBTECH. She’ll compete at the state level in first aid.