FRENCHVILLE, Maine — The St. John Valley Technology Center received several awards during a recent state Skills USA event in March, with three students getting gold medals, two getting bronze, and Director Kevin Lavoie getting a Skills USA Cornerstone Award.
The Cornerstone Award recognizes people who help foster relationships between school administrators and other SkillsUSA chapters and who show ambition, leadership, and support of their students.
Lavoie — who is heavily involved with SkillsUSA Maine and serves as a chapter advisor, a board member, chapter advisor and who chaired three competitions in Bangor — said he had no idea he would be getting the award during the mid-March competition at Eastern Maine Community College.
“I was surprised,” he said. “It’s a humbling experience.”
SkillsUSA was created in 1965 as a national endeavor to encourage students to participate in trades. Now, Lavoie said there are hundreds of thousands of members throughout the country.
The St. John Valley Technology Center is one of 27 career and technical education (CTE) centers in the state that participated in the recent SkillsUSA competition.
Gold medal recipients are Damyn Hebert with a medal in welding, Rennae St. Onge with a medal in health occupations professional portfolio and Jadie Fidel with a medal for extemporaneous speaking.
Two students were also given bronze medals. Kelsie Daigle was awarded the medal for customer service and Brandon Vandine received the medal for heavy equipment operations.
“We’re pleased,” Lavoie said of the results. “We’re the fourth smallest CTE center in the state of Maine, so for us to go and compete against the big boys, per se, it’s nice to be able to represent well and walk away with medals.”
He said it shows that students can come from a rural, smaller community and still be competitive in the marketplace.
The gold medal winners will all be able to compete in the national SkillsUSA conference in Atlanta, Georgia in late June. He said both Fidel and St. Onge are planing to attend, but Hebert will not be able to go due to scheduling conflicts with other courses and college preparation.
In the post-secondary school category, three St. John Valley Technology Center graduates who are now attending Northern Maine Community College in Presque Isle also netted awards. AJ Lagasse won a silver medal in welding, Trystan Rioux won the gold medal for welding and Robbie Poiesz won the gold in electrical construction wiring.
Lavoie said he was incredibly proud of his students for their performance in the recent competition.
“I really feel that what career and technical education provides students is immeasurable,” Lavoie said. “And I feel that it can go a long way, both on a personal enrichment level and/or a career pathway. I’m really proud of what we do, and I’m proud of the staff that we have to be able to educate our students.”
