Wyoming-based Western Welding Academy’s Blue Collar Tour made a stop at Elgin High School Wednesday, offering demonstrations, hands-on learning experiences and motivational talks to spark student interest in the trades.
“We hope the tour inspires students to pursue blue collar trades,” said Quacy Wilson, the academy’s director of student selection. “They’re the backbone of our country and are important.”
Wilson said the tour was making its way through 32 high schools across the country in 60 days. With an estimated shortage of about 400,000 welders nationally, getting students to take up the profession is imperative, he said.
More than 200 students attended the event — about 100 from Elgin-based School District U-46 and another 100 or so from Hampshire, Burlington Central and Lockport Township high schools. Students involved with Elgin High School’s “Maroon Buzz” YouTube channel documented the proceedings.
Myka Kennedy, U-46 assistant director of post-secondary success, said they have about 100 students from its five high schools taking part in the welding program at Elgin High School.
The tour making a stop in Elgin was a first-of-its-kind offering for the district, Kennedy and Elgin High Assistant Principal Jeremy Burnham said. Their hope is it inspires students to check out the profession while drawing attention to their efforts to offer trades training, they said.
“It’s nice to drive a specialty like this (tour) here,” Burnham said.
U-46 is committed to getting students to think about what they want to do after high school by introducing them to a variety of professions, including those in the trades. To that enrollment, eight buses of U-46 students recently toured a variety of local workplaces, Kennedy said, and last summer the district partnered with nonprofit Alignment for Collaborative Education and local businesses to offer 100 paid internships in various fields, including manufacturing and the trades. They hope to offer 200 internships this summer, Kennedy said.
Having students from other district high schools participate was a good way to demonstrate that U-46 can work with other districts on such programming, she said.
U-46 welding program students Ryan Reyes and Robert Capuzi said the tour stop gave them a chance to pick up pointers and build their skills. Reyes, 18, of Hanover Park, is a senior at Bartlett High School and Capuzi, 17, of Elgin, is a senior at Elgin High.
Capuzi said he likes that welding classes are active and don’t require him to sit in a chair to learn. He plans to study engineering at a four-year college in the fall but will keep up his welding skills either as a hobby or a way to help pay for his education, he said.
Reyes said he wants to secure a union apprenticeship in welding so he can work locally or possibly as a pipeline welder, which would require a lot of travel.
“I like that welding is about how-to-do, hands-on and not a typical 9-to-5 job,” he said.
Mike Danahey is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
