Congratulations to Cohoes High School juniors Ivan Bittner and Dicey Lewis, who placed first in the regional SkillsUSA competition for Extemporaneous Speaking and Prepared Speech, respectively. Ivan is enrolled in the Capital Region BOCES Career & Technical Education (CTE) program for Networking Technology and Dicey is in the Global Fashion program.
Placing second were senior Richard Shumway, who is enrolled in Auto Service Technology, Automotive Trades Technology and junior Stephanie O’Rourke, for Food Prep Basic, Culinary Arts and Hospitality Tech.
These students are among 31 talented CTE students who earned medals at the regional SkillsUSA competition on March 19, which was held at the CTE Albany campus, as well as SUNY Schenectady County Community College (SCCC) and the International Union of Operating Engineers training facility in Albany.
The students competed against their peers from Questar III and several other BOCES in areas as diverse as electrical wiring, public speaking, automotive repair, job interviewing, and cooking.
The SkillsUSA Championships are designed and assessed by industry professionals.
The 12 first place winners and other medal winners will advance to the state SkillsUSA competition April 23-25 at the New York State Fairgrounds in Syracuse. Winners of that event will advance to the national competition in June.
“Congratulations to our scholars. They all did a fantastic job and we are very proud of them,” said Debra Toy, advisor at the SkillsUSA organization on the Capital Region BOCES Career & Technical Education Center – Albany Campus.