By DAWN BONE / Guest Columnist

Students from several Shelby County Schools competed in the Skills USA District Competition on Feb. 20.

Skills USA is a United States career and technical student organization serving more than 360,000 high school and college students enrolled in training programs in technical, skilled, and service occupations.

The district competition held at Lawson Community College had over 300 students from 30 schools in central Alabama participate.

Students competed in a variety of events and the top three winners in each category were awarded a gold, silver or bronze medal.

The Shelby County College and Career Center (CCC) received the most total medals at 15, and Chelsea High School tied for the most gold medals at seven. Calera High School won two medals.

The 2017 Central District winners are as follows:

In Architectural Drafting, Chelsea High School students earned first, second and third place. Justin Pawl placed third, Jacob Shaw placed second and Gillian Bryant earned first place.

In Automotive Services Technology, Dante Britting from CCC won a bronze medal.

In Carpentry, Dalton Purcell from CCC won a silver medal.

In Class Project Display Individual, Calera High Schools students Richard Swartz won a bronze medal and Ben Johnson won a silver medal.

In the team division of Class Project Display, Josh Actin, Cody Hurt and Chris Carden, robotic students from CCC, earned a bronze medal.

In Customer Service, Nicholas Chapple from CCC won a gold medal.

In Extemporaneous Speaking, Alex Love from CCC earned a gold medal.

In Job Skills Demo, CCC students Skylar Ellison earned a bronze medal, and Juddson Raia earned a gold medal.

In Quiz Bowl, Shelby Middleton, Alez Bergert, Jacob McCormick, Jason Powell and Tristen Russell from CCC won a bronze medal and the team from Chelsea High, Rylie Gulledge, Joseph Flenn, Evan Kelley, Jacob Shaw and Savannah Coley won a gold medal.

In Related Technical Math, Robin Dixon from Chelsea High School won gold place.

In Technical Drawing, Andrew Flemming from Chelsea High School won a silver medal.

In Welding, Michael Ward from CCC won a gold medal.

These students will advance to the state competition held in April.