By Kiana Caranto

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MHS was represented strongly at this year’s SkillsUSA State Conference held at the Hawaii Convention Center on Feb. 20 and 21. A total of 17 students placed top three in categories ranging from Mobile Robotics to Promotional Bulletin Board, and five of them will be moving on to the national competition.

“Our kids did very well. Even the students that didn’t place, they performed very admirably and they represented (MHS) very well. Myself and all the advisers are very happy with the results,” stated SkillsUSA adviser Tom Falenofoa.

SkillsUSA is an organization that allows students involved in a career or technical education program to showcase their capabilities in their corresponding categories. This year’s conference was beneficial to the students in that it gave them a chance to realize their potential. “It really kind of brings out the best in students because it gives them an opportunity to demonstrate what it is that they know,” said Falenofoa, “Seeing students who normally don’t get a chance to showcase their abilities get a chance to shine.”

Many of the students that placed this year had competed in past years, one of them being SkillsUSA State President Senior Gabrielle Reznik, who placed first in the Job Interview category. Students in this category were required to complete tasks such as accurately filling out job applications and answering a series of questions. “I went to become a social worker and I guess I was the most qualified for that,” said Reznik, “I was happy. I wasn’t so much surprised because I mean, I knew I worked hard.” Reznik also took second place in the same category at last year’s conference.

For others such as MHS’ SkillsUSA President Junior Clayton Dailey, this competition posed a bigger challenge. Dailey was part of the team that placed first in the Mobile Robotics category, in which students were required to build a robot to accomplish a specific task along with putting together a PowerPoint explaining their thought processes. “It was challenging because it’s hard to communicate your ideas and why you did certain things to other people,” explained Dailey, “We were very excited and surprised because we really thought that we weren’t going to win.”

For the students, the conference was very rewarding and a culmination of all their hard work up to this point. “It was a stressful week; we barely slept. But I mean, it paid off in the end; everybody was happy, everybody worked hard and our advisers were all like really thankful andeverybody told us we did a really good job,” said Reznik.

This hard work will carry on to nationals, in which five first-placing MHS students will

be participating. Some have already started to prepare and think specifically about what they need to improve on. “We definitely need to work on our presentations and our design process. That was the weakest part of our competition where we scored lowest,” said Dailey.

Both the students and advisers are prepared to work harder than ever and hope to do well at the national competition.