Local students win Skills competitions

Nearly 500 elementary and secondary students from schools across the Halton Region gathered to compete in a wide range of skills earlier this month. Several Halton Hills students mastered the competition and brought medals home. Seven local students will be competing at the Ontario Skills Competition in May after participating in the 17th Annual Technical Skills Competition on April 12 at Robert Bateman High School in Burlington. The event took place throughout the day and competition results were commemorated during a presentation of medals that evening. A soapbox derby, or the Distance Challenge, was one of the events in which Georgetown students dominated. This event takes place in vehicles built by teams of Grade 7-8 and Grade 9 students. Gold, silver and bronze medals were presented to three teams of Georgetown students. Georgetown District High School students won gold and silver in the Distance Challenge Obstacle event. Joey Lockwood, Jason Brunt, Thomas Boyd and Chris Hamer won gold while Dan Cresnjovic, Matthew White, Eric Mulligan and Chris Kolomeitz won silver and then bronze for Distance Challenge Best Paint. Keegan Dahl, Niraj Kansara, Stephanie Lewis and Stacey Tsotsos won two bronze medals for Silver Creek Public School in the Distance Challenge Best Presentation and Best Maneuvering at an elementary level. Georgetown District High School Students had strong standings in competitions throughout the event. Shannon Greeley won silver in the Hairstyling competition. Kevin Vanderlaan took silver in the Carpentry-Individual event while Jim Blair and Scott Nobel won silver in the Carpentry-Team event. Simon Cook and Kyle Dwyer worked as a team and took home the silver for Christ the King High School in the 3-D Character Animation event. Acton District High School students wiped the competition in various events. In the Architectural CADD event, Angela Henderson took the gold, Rhiannon Roerig won silver and Hazen Andrews won bronze. Marnie Demand won gold, Ryan Martin won silver and Nils Olav Stockinger won bronze in the Mechanical CADD event. In the Photography-Digital event, Becky Gibson took gold, Brett Kirton the silver and Matt Loturco the bronze. Winning students go on to represent the Halton District School Board at the Ontario Skills Competition in Kitchener May 2-3, and then onto the Canadian Skills Competition in Halifax May 23-26.