OTC students headed for national SkillsUSA competition

Two-time state champion Jason Bills will lead 32 other OTC students to the national SkillsUSA competition in Kansas City this June.

The group of post-secondary and secondary students all finished first in the Missouri SkillsUSA Leadership and Skills Conference held at Linn State Technical College earlier this month.

SkillsUSA is a national organization serving trade, industrial, technical and health occupations students in public high schools, career and technical centers and community colleges.

Bills, a mechanic at City Utilities who is earning his applied science degree in welding technology at OTC, will attempt to take top national honors in the welding this summer. Last year, he finished 26^th in the country.

Other first place winners who will advance to nationals in hopes of winning top honors and a scholarship are:

Billy Brandon and Danielle Jones, 3-D visualization

Nik Marchuk, advertising design

Matt Hickey and Tommy McFarland, audio/radio production

Jeremy Higginbotham, automotive refinishing technology

Seth Swango, automotive service technology

Greg Gardner, Kaitlyn Schumacher, Nic Stogsdill and Brandon Vanderstine, broadcast news production.

Amelia Lux, commercial baking

Joshua Sharp, computer programming

Jamie Brown, Chenoa Reyes, Amber Tinnon, Mariah Altic, Jessica Highfill and Christine Peoles, early childhood education

Kevin Blankenship, culinary arts

James Wachob, diesel equipment technology

Daniel Jackson, Celeste Moreland, James Hunt and Michael Stone, digital cinema production

Paul Gildard, photography

Gayle Akery, Josh Kays, Theo Sfortunato, Destry Withers, teamworks carpentry

Brandon Harper and Tyler Sederwall, television (video) production