St Pat’s Skills USA team headed to Nationals

NORTH PLATTE, Neb - The North Platte Saint Patrick's boys Skills USA team has qualified for the National Skills USA competition June 18 in Atlanta, Georgia.

The SkillsUSA Championships are career competition events showcasing the best career and technical education students in the nation. Contests begin locally and continue through the state and national levels.

Through an investment from business and industry partners of approximately $36 million, the event occupies a space equivalent to 31 football fields or 41 acres. In 2022, there were more nearly 5,200 contestants in 108 separate events. Nearly 2,000 judges and contest organizers from labor and management make the national event possible.

The philosophy of the Championships is to reward students for excellence, to involve industry in directly evaluating student performance and to keep training relevant to employers’ needs.

The NPSP boys team qualified in "Video News Production", in which Teams of four have two hours to write and produce their rundown before the assigned competition time. Two students serve as the news anchor team, one student serves as the team’s director/technical director, and one student is the floor director. Teams will produce and complete a three-minute newscast as if it were live. Teams are evaluated on their broadcast writing ability, voice quality, diction, timing and pacing and performance techniques.

The boys are holding fundraising events to pay for their trip. The first fundraiser is May 20th with a pickleball tournament, they'll host a pork feed June 4.

The team is made up of Trey Furmanski, Emilio Dimas, Isaas Irish, and Hunter Deeds.