National Auto Tech Contest
The SkillsUSA Championships showcases the country’s most skilled career and technical education students, and this year one of them is coming from Ravenwood. Northeast Nodaway senior Kenneth Schieber, who attends Northwest Technical School, received two gold medals at this year’s SkillsUSA Missouri State Leadership & Skills Conference: one in automotive service technology and another in automotive service technology information. That means he will move on to the national contest in Atlanta, Georgia. National Auto Tech Contest.
“It’s a big, big accomplishment,” he told The Forum. “I’m excited. I’m also nervous.”
According to the SkillsUSA competition description, the two categories require competitors to demonstrate their ability to perform tasks, make repairs in a hands-on contest, and also compete in a written test portion consistent with guidelines published by the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence, a professional certification group that certifies professionals and shops throughout the United States and parts of Canada.
“(It’s) very rare that somebody wins both,” Northwest Technical School Director Jeremy Ingraham said at a recent Maryville R-II Board of Education meeting. “(At state he was) competing against kids from St. Louis, Columbia and all over. … He probably has a good chance of being the national champion.”
Ingraham said Schieber’s instructor, Matt Graham, has put in a lot of effort to help him prepare for the competition, which includes diagnosing issues on different cars and his ability to use more than 10 different skills. Schieber said he believes the national contest will be very similar to the state contest.
“I’m thinking that (there will) be a lot more cool stuff to see down there, too,” he said.
Schieber said he believes his biggest strength in the competition is the written test on his automotive knowledge, which he said he learned mostly at NTS, but also from “just messing around with that stuff on vehicles at home and whatnot.”
The championships will be held June 23-27 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.
In the fall, Schieber plans to attend Southeast Community College in Milford, Nebraska, to study in the Diesel-Ag Equipment Service Technology program.
He is also the recipient of two local memorial scholarships (Bryan K. Arnold Memorial Scholarship and Cody Lee Stiens Memorial Scholarship), the organizers of which focus on providing financial assistance to students seeking more education in trade schools.
Source: National Auto Tech Contest
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