North Country students earn medals at SkillsUSA competitions

NEWPORT — North Country Career Center students brought home multiple medals from recent local and state SkillsUSA competitions, with the center earning recognition as Vermont’s only Chapter Quality Award recipient.

At the March 27 Health Knowledge Bowl, three students captured first place against 10 competitive teams. Julia Frohn, Ava LeBlanc and Carver Maxwell earned gold medals and East Side Restaurant gift cards for their performance.

“I was so shocked, I could not believe we did that and it was an amazing experience,” Maxwell said.

Silver medals went to Hayden Boivin, Abby Bathalon, Myah Couture and Alivia Poutre, who received Green Mountain Natural Foods gift cards. “Although we got second, I felt pretty good,” Boivin said.

Emma Marquis, Ella Berthiaume and Angelyna Fletcher earned bronze medals and Pick and Shovel gift cards for their third-place finish.

In state competitions held April 8-9 at Vermont State University in Randolph, Bathalon won silver in Medical Terminology while Boivin took bronze. Severt Drew Anderson and Ben Warren earned silver medals in Additive Manufacturing.

The center’s final local contest on April 15 saw Jael Francis win bronze for demonstrating modeling walk, Kayla Graves take silver for showing how to relieve a choking victim, and Willow Clements earn gold for illustrating how to stop life-threatening bleeding.

Students reported enjoying the opportunity to meet peers from other technical centers during the awards ceremony on April 11. They described the experience as “fun” and said they “learned a lot about what they still need to learn.”

SkillsUSA is a student organization for career and technical education students.