SkillsUSA: A Club With “Something for Everyone”

One of the projects SkillsUSA is working on for the 2026 State Conference is an engine rebuild for an electric go-kart. This project will be featured in the Transportation Showcase. “Projects range,” said Emily Crees, a junior and the Vice President of SkillsUSA. “So there's a lot of people who decide to work on lawnmowers and make them racing mowers or fix them up, and then there are a lot of people who will rebuild engines. We have one of those projects this year.” Photo Credits: Rebecca Billette

Rebecca Billette, Editor-in-Chief of The Powderhorn

Students at Watauga High School have no limit on the extracurriculars they can join to challenge their knowledge in a variety of academic pursuits. From HOSA to DECA, students can pursue most interests beyond the classroom further, and the competitions they offer allow students to take home medals and trophies as recognition for their hard work. One of Watauga’s lesser-known but incredibly wide-ranging competition teams is SkillsUSA, which provides an environment where CTE knowledge can be put to the test in the form of long-term projects.   

“SkillsUSA is for all of the CTE (Career and Technical Education) classes,” said the SkillsUSA club advisor, Erik Mortenson, who teaches Automotive Technology at Watauga High School. “So mostly we focus here on the trades in our classes, but Skills is for students that want to learn more and be job ready, learn some leadership skills, just basically get a headstart on the next phase of their life. It's an opportunity for them to practice their life skills and job skills.”

SkillsUSA left this Wednesday, April 15, for their State Conference in Greensboro at the Koury Convention Center, and the awards session will follow on April 17. The students have spent the last few days displaying their projects and binders to judges, as well as undergoing mini interviews to show off their knowledge of their chosen subject. However, the process of competing at SkillsUSA starts much earlier in the school year than just this week.

“The first day of school, we figure out what projects we're doing for the year, and the second day of school we work on it,” said the SkillsUSA President, junior Parker Strickland. “We work on our projects four times a week in FLEX all year until April.”

SkillsUSA is unique because each project is entirely student-led. Since the organization’s goal is to prepare students with hands-on skills for a career in the field of their choosing, student autonomy is of the utmost emphasis. To ensure these criteria are met, SkillsUSA requires each student to stay diligent in keeping written records of the process of completing their projects, including photographs of each step.

“The paperwork, I would say, is maybe 80% of the actual judging,” said Noah Earp, a senior, and SkillsUSA’s Parliamentarian. “The 20% is sort of your appearance: Are you wearing your safety glasses? Are you in the right
dress code? But the paperwork is explaining how, why, what, and when you did it. It's basically giving the judges proof that you were the one doing it, and you know what you're doing.”

Unlike competitions like DECA or HOSA, which have the specific academic scopes of business/marketing and healthcare respectively, SkillsUSA has incredible versatility when it comes to projects students can complete. Past years at Watauga have included the construction of rideable lawn mowers and electric cars, but the club hopes to expand into a wider range of disciplines in the future. 

“Most of our projects are in auto tech, but we've had welding, carpentry, speech and debate, parliamentary procedure, and photography,” Strickland said. “There's everything that you can possibly think of. There's cooking. There's cosmetology. There's computer stuff, like video game design. Everything has an event. So there's something for everyone.”

SkillsUSA offers a wealth of professional development and practical life skills to its participants. Students learn how to independently design and complete hands-on projects, navigate conflict, and maintain thorough paperwork. Beyond that, SkillsUSA allows students to learn exactly what its name implies: skills.

“I've learned a bunch of life skills that are good to have,” said SkillsUSA’s Secretary, freshman Sarah Earp. “If, say, you break down on the side of the road or something, maybe you can fix it, so you're not there waiting for AAA for five hours.”

In addition to its practical aspects, SkillsUSA is a community where students can forge new connections and gain self-confidence. Working for months in a small team on a tangible project can lead to rewarding friendships that last a lifetime.  

“I started last year, and it was a good way for me to start connecting with people that I actually wanted to be friends with and hang out with in the automotive world,” said Emily Crees, a junior and the Vice President of SkillsUSA. “And so I continued to do it this year and I've met more people and it's just been a way to connect with them.”

Watauga’s SkillsUSA chapter has immense room for growth, as the North Carolina State Conference offers a wide variety of categories still untapped by students from the high country. These vary as widely as crime scene investigation, pastry skills, firefighting, and t-shirt design, just to name a few.

“SkillsUSA is an opportunity for students to learn new things,” Mortenson said. “They don't have to be in a CTE class to be a part of Skills. They also have nursing, audio and media production, being a newscaster, stuff like that. If students have a hobby or they have a desire to learn something that's not offered at our school, Skills probably offers it, and I'm happy to teach them.”