MOSES LAKE – Students from Moses Lake High School, Columbia High School and Newport High School participated in a friendly welding competition Friday morning at Big Bend Community College. Teams of students split into six teams to weld metal sculptures inspired by their school mascots. 

“We are a community college and we work with (the high schools we serve) to try to make sure that we’re able to meet the educational needs of the surrounding community, including all the various trades that we train for,” said BBCC Senior Associate Professor Shawn McDaniel, who helped organize the event.  

McDaniel worked for the last few months to coordinate the event with the high school instructors and over the last couple of weeks had reconfigured the BBCC welding lab to allow the six groups to all have comparable facilities for a fair competition, he said. With the playing field set up for a fair competition, there were a few behind-the-scenes hiccups, but nothing that was allowed to impact the students’ experiences.  

BBCC representatives expressed gratitude for the companies that provided steel and judges for the event, as well as the prizes. Moses Lake Steel Supply provided the material while Faber Industrial Supply and Oxarc provided prizes and Wagstaff raffled prizes to students. 

Prizes included a multiprocessor welder with four auto shade welding hats, a plasma cutter and a grinder. 

A large part of the event, the second Big Bend has hosted, was to ensure the young welders had a chance to network with their peers from other schools and practice for upcoming welding competitions. 

“I’ve got one of my competitive teams qualified for state,” said MLHS welding instructor Jimmy Herrin. “They won the Eastern Regional in (the Spokane area). ... They’re headed to state. That’ll be March 27 and 28 and 29. We’ll be there the 27th and 28th, then we’ll be home.”  

Herrin added that the team took home third place last year and he’s hoping the team can improve on that respectable position with a better ranking at the end of the competition.  

Herrin and McDaniel both acknowledged that trade skills like welding are highly sought after, both locally and nationally, and that a trade can provide a living-wage job and a high quality of life. With the local demand, trade skills can also keep locally educated, skilled welders in the communities they grew up in.  

“There’s companies like Genie that seems to always be looking for good welders, as well as a wide variety of other companies. One of the things that most people aren’t aware of is, when you look around, everything that you see is either welded on or touched by welding, somehow. (It’s) transported on welded trucks; transported on trains or airplanes.”  

Even something as simple as the frame of a table at a restaurant is made with welded steel and the tabletop is made using equipment that was welded together.  

Herrin said welding can be a calling for some of the students and a place where they feel they fit in. 

“Some of the kids, they just like welding (and) don’t get to shine anywhere else, and they find their happy point in the welding classroom.”  

Meeting peers with similar interests and skills is a big part of helping the students develop professional networks before they even graduate, McDaniel said.  

“It’s fantastic to have the students come in and see the facility be more involved, being able to network with other students from throughout the area and beyond,” McDaniel said. “It’s really valuable to see the different instructors and how they’re bringing their students in and coordinating with the college.”  

Herrin said he was proud of his students for their work in the competition, which was more casual than most. While this event focused on school pride and metal sculpting, the state competition later this month will be focused on the quality of the welds the students produce. Building their skills for future employers through friendly competition will help them as they graduate and move into the workforce. 

“It’s nice to see that there are some kids out there definitely thinking towards the future,” he said.