Battle Ground Public Schools

Prairie, Battle Ground high school students claim top prizes in SkillsUSA welding competition

April 18, 2024

At the 2024 SkillsUSA state competition at Centralia College last month, the welding fabrication competition was mostly a Battle Ground Public Schools affair. Prairie High School’s three-student team claimed first place, with Battle Ground High School bringing home silver.

“These three put a lot of work in,” said Prairie welding / machine shop instructor Rob Smith of his team. “All three would be here all day long if they could. Their attention to detail is phenomenal.”

Teams were given a complete set of plans for a welding and cutting table.  All of the required materials to construct the table were available. Then, they had just five hours to complete it.

“We were given this big packet of drawing specifications,” said Grayson Allen, a senior at Prairie. “We had to put welds in specific spots and build it exactly to the drawings.”

Allen’s teammates, Kent Rohner and Brody Nieto, said they went into the regional event simply hoping to learn and test their skills against other high school students from around the area. When they won, it came as something of a shock, but not a surprise.  At the regional competition, some of the other teams were coming in with crates of high-tech equipment, they said. The Prairie trio walked in with their arms loaded with an assortment of tools.  The field was a little more even at the state level with all the teams competing being limited to a specific set of tools.

“They just put their time in and focused on the task, splitting the jobs up,” Smith said. “And they came up with a high-quality project.”

Meanwhile Battle Ground High School’s team of Jason Lundervold, Aiden Goncalves and Avery Carlson, under the leadership of Tod Garred, claimed silver at the state event. 

Welding and fabrication are two of the dozens of Career and Technical Education classes offered as part of Battle Ground Public Schools’ commitment to providing students with access to high-demand fields such as health care, engineering, agriculture, construction and much more.

Pathway to a successful career

Several of Smith’s students said they are planning to take the skills learned in the machine shop class into their professional life. But even if they weren’t planning careers in fabrication or welding, the lessons learned would be valuable in almost any area of life.

“Problem solving is the biggest thing we do in this class,” Allen said. “I can’t even count the number of times I’ve used the skills I learned in this class outside of the classroom.”

Skilled trades are increasingly in demand as older generations of workers retire and fewer young people sign up. But Smith said students who have an interest in the field can quickly find themselves making a very competitive decent wage, often working in a clean and safe environment.

“People think welding is a dirty shop job, but it’s not,” Smith said. “If you’re running, say, a CNC milling machine, you can easily make 100-150 thousand dollars a year.”

Prairie’s team is currently looking for sponsorships to help them get to the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference next June in Atlanta. For more information about the Welding and Machining Program at Prairie or if you’re interested in helping send the team to Atlanta, please contact Rob Smith at smith.rob@battlegroundps.org.