Students advance to SkillsUSA contest

Eight students enrolled in Le Mars Community School's Trades and Industry (T & I) program will be traveling to Ankeny this week to compete in an automotive contest.

The LCS students will compete with about 500 students from 30 schools on a SkillsUSA written test at Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC).

Topics include engine repair, automotive electrical, suspension and steering, manual transmission and drive train, automatic transmission, and more.

Those tests will be scored, then schools will be ranked based on the top two student scores from each school. The top eight schools in that ranking will qualify for a hands-on competition at DMACC in December.

To compete at the Ankeny contest, local students first took a written test to qualify, according to T & I instructor Paul Fischer. Of those students, the top eight were chosen to compete.

The local T & I students attending the competition Thursday include LCS students Jacob Conley, senior; Neil Neihus, senior; Tyler Boehm, senior; Eric Weber, sophomore; John Seible, senior; Austin Bergquist, senior; and R.J. Lara, senior; along with Derek Ahlers, a junior from Remsen-Union.