After competing in Reno on April 7-10, at the largest SkillsUSA competition in Nevada history, Silverado SkillsUSA members brought home gold medals and several top awards.
The SkillsUSA team is part of Silverado High School’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) program, which prepares students with hands-on experience in career-focused fields.
The Career Pathways team, including juniors Sophia Booth and Lucus Pfahler, along with senior Nya Cimino, took home gold medals. Senior Brianna Escalera also won a gold medal in the Customer Service competition.
Juniors Kara Silver and Dezarae Gonzalez placed second in Video Production, bringing home silver medals for the second year in a row.
“It was really surreal to win silver,” Silver said. “Dez and I are proud of the work we put into our project. Being able to compete is so much fun, and I’m glad I was able to help us win another medal.”
Silver also described some of their difficulties.
“The hardest part was overcoming some technical issues,” she explained. “Our computers didn’t want to work while we were trying to edit our footage for the video production competition. But after figuring it out and finding other ways around it, everything worked out pretty smoothly.”
Several other teams also earned top-five finishes. Senior Baylin DeFranco, senior Giselle Garcia, and junior Maria Ibanez earned fourth place in the Crime Scene Investigation competition.
“[This competition is] where they give you a physical crime scene set up and scenario where you go in and have to complete it,” DeFranco explained.
DeFranco said unexpectancy created challenges.
“The hardest part of the competition was when a random man walked into our crime scene as a witness unexpectedly,” she said.
In addition to the top-five finishes, seniors Baylin DeFranco, Giselle Garcia, and Briana Escalera finished fourth in the Community Service competition.
Garcia explained that their project was on Women Against Domestic Violence.
“We collected over 500+ donations that we donated to local women’s shelters,” Garcia said. “We focused on helping women and children who have escaped domestic violence and are living in shelters.”
Comparing this year’s competition to the previous year, Garcia said, “Since it was my last year doing Skills, I had a lot more fun and made a lot of friends.”
In the same competition, juniors Khelzy Andhrea Sarabia, Maria Ibanez, and Penelope Rojas finished in fifth place. Sarabia, whose role was promoting the book drive and compiling data from the drive to be put in their community service presentation, said the group began planning last fall.
“We planned in November but didn’t launch the book drive until Jan. 7, and then collected and donated the books to Spread the Word Nevada on March 7,” Sarabia said. “After that, we met up to put all the logistics behind our community service project into a binder and presentation to prepare.”
She also credited her team’s success through their teamwork, saying the project was driven by “our determination in creating awareness for the literacy and educational gap for the youth that did not have access to books of their own. It was a lengthy process, and we also could not have done without Sophia Booth, founder of Girls Together Inc., who helped coordinate this project and put it on the road.”
Following the win of multiple gold medals and top finishes, Silverado SkillsUSA members have qualified for nationals in Atlanta, Georgia, this June.
