CCTI students earn first place in district skills competition

Students from the Carbon Career & Technical Institute in Jim Thorpe recently competed at the district competition of SkillsUSA, an organization made up of students, teachers and industry that works to ensure America has a skilled work force.

The organization has more than 13,000 school chapters in 54 state and territorial associations and serves more than 300,000 students and instructors annually.

CCTI came away with five first place finishers. Dave Pelcheck of Panther Valley won first in Carpentry; Clint Pickrell of Palmerton won in HVAC; Corey Eck, a junior from Jim Thorpe, won in Industrial Motor Control; Stephanie Macaluso of Jim Thorpe won in Job Interview; and Matthew Shupp of Lehighton won in Precision Machine Technology.

Students from the school also came back with a number of second place prizes. Jake Lazar of Weatherly won 2nd in Welding; Timothy Holderman of Lehighton won in Advertising Design.

In addition, four students competed together as a team in the Health Information Knowledge Bowl and won second place: Alissa Curreri of Jim Thorpe; Carly Fox of Panther Valley; Morgan Ferraril of Panther Valley and Gabrielle Homlak of Palmerton.

Finally, two students won third place awards at the competition. Kevin Mengle of Weatherly won for Collision Repair Technology and Natashia Roth of Jim Thorpe won for Nurse Assisting.

"We have some people going on to state and we're hoping for some more national winners," Borzak said. "We had two last year and we're looking for more winners this year. I think we're going to do it."