Twelve Nellie N. Coffman Middle School students and three Cathedral City High School students took home gold medals in the recent state SkillsUSA state competition and will be representing their schools and PSUSD in the National SkillsUSA competition in Louisville, Kentucky later this month.

SkillsUSA is a national membership association serving high school, college and middle school students preparing for careers in trade, technical and skilled service occupations

National Competition Awaits Cathedral City StudentsTwenty NNC students from that school’s SkillsUSA chapter qualified for the Ontario state competition held in April. Students who received gold medals and will be advancing to the national competition and include: Carrie Crane, Marcoantonio Herrera, Lonnie Iniguez, Sylvia Mitchell, Isaiah Morales, Alfonzo Negra Rangel and Kelou Uyanwune (Opening and Closing Ceremonies); Marlene Gutierrez, Sylvia Mitchell and Lynda Torres (Team Engineering Challenge); Isaiah Chavez (Pin Design) and Edwin Casteneda (Job Skill Demonstration Open). The NNC SkillsUSA team is coached by their advisor Connie Mitchell.

Cathedral City High School’s SkillsUSA chapter is comprised of the 285 Digital Arts Technology Academy (DATA) students. A total of about 80 CCHS students qualified for April’s state competition, and three CCHS students will represent the school at the 54st annual national competition in Kentucky on June 25.Gold award winners moving on to state competition include: Andrea Rojas (Graphic Communications), Morgan Wash (Advertising Design) and Mikie Bowman (Extemporaneous Speaking).

National Competition Awaits Cathedral City Students National Competition Awaits Cathedral City Students National Competition Awaits Cathedral City Students

CCHS students also won silver awards in Interactive App & Game Development (Connor Robles and AJ Burke), Pin Design (Crystal Martinez), Chapter Business Procedure (Gina Milanovich, Bunnie Cortez, Jennifer Duran, Mariah Vega, Disneiruby Parra and Nia Chicas) and Creed (Mariana Rojas).  CCHS students taking home bronze awards at the state competition include: Blanca Granados (Advertising Design); Daniel Alvarado, Shan Vo and Jeanette Gonzales (Outstanding Chapter); and Melani Martin (Creed). Statesmen Awards also went to Alvarado, Gonzales, Milanovich and Rojas. CCHS DATA instructor Cami Saliba is the CCHS SkillsUSA chapter advisor.

The 15 NNC and CCHS students will be among 6,000 career and technical education student competitors who took home first place medals at state competitions. The conference will be held June 25-29, and more than 16,000 attendees are expected.