EWC Student Wins Gold Medal at National Skills USA-VICA Competition
July 10, 0203
(Torrington, WY) Eastern Wyoming College was represented by six students at the National SkillsUSA-VICA competition in Kansas City, MO, June 24-27. To compete at the national level of SkillsUSA-VICA the students had to finish in first place at the state competition. Competing for the college were: Larry Gallant- welding; Cam Huston- precision machining technology; Matt Rolf- computer maintenance technology; Abigail Cantwell- job skills demonstration A; Cody Livingston- extemporaneous speaking; and Jamie Sage- promotional bulletin board.
Matt Rolf, of Torrington, had an outstanding competition and brought home a gold medal after finishing first in post-secondary computer maintenance technology. EWC Computer Science/Networking instructor, Kim Griggs, commented,
"I am so proud of him!"
Rolf received a laptop computer, a four year scholarship to ITT Technical Institute (which he declined), and qualified for Team USA to compete in Finland in summer 2005. Rolf said about the competition, "It was a fun challenge, and interesting to work alongside some of the best in my field."
He plans to get a Bachelor of Science degree and eventually a Masters in Business Administration to work as a network administrator. Matt stated, "I would like to stay around here to finish my degree, probably on-line, since I have a great job, and then stay around here to work if feasible."
Rolf has worked for Northern Exposure Computer Center for over three and a half years, and through them has worked on computer systems for the County, local law enforcement agencies, and the college.
According to Russell Pontarolo, Welding instructor at EWC, Larry Gallant, of Buffalo, WY, took 4th place out of 36 overall in the nation in the post secondary welding competition, while Cam Huston, of Wheatland, WY, placed in the upper percentile in post secondary machine tooling. Chance Pollo, a senior from Douglas High School, won the silver medal in the secondary welding competition. Pollo was an EWC concurrent enrollment student and will be attending the college this fall on honor scholarship, majoring in welding and machine tool technology. Pontarolo stated, "The fact that these people were able to make it this far shows their abilities and professionalism on a very high scale. Only the top 2% compete nationally. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to make it to that point! Every student that competed nationally is already a champion in my opinion."
