The SkillsUSA chapter at the Center for Advanced Technical Studies was once again successful at the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference in Atlanta on June 16, School District Five of Lexington and Richland counties announced in a news release.

The conference totaled more than 19,000 attendees from across the country with over 2,000 industry professionals. The center fielded 25 students across 15 competitions. Fifteen of those students finished in the top 10 of their competition, including five who medaled (three competitions). The center was also named a National Model of Excellence for the sixth time in seven years, ranking among the top 24 chapters out of more than 5,000 nationwide.

National placers
* First place: Harper Chapman – prepared speech, middle school
* Second place: Richard Haines, Anna Halligan and Bailey Lunsford - occupational health and safety multiple
* Third place: Graham Thompson - career and technical educator
* Model of Excellence: student representatives Parsons Harper and Famke Steiert

This is the sixth year in a row that the center’s SkillsUSA chapter has had students medal at the national level. Chapman is the first SkillsUSA middle school national champion and medalist from School District Five.

“We continue to find success at the local, state and national level as individuals and as an entire chapter thanks to the hard work of these students, teachers and administration,” lead adviser Joseph Chapman said in the release. “SkillsUSA has not only become an extremely important piece of career and technical education in our district but has become part of our community and local industry. Each year, we challenge our students to build off of the previous year and find new, innovative ways to grow our community, grow themselves and pave the way for those to follow. We are extremely proud that they consistently rise to the challenge and represent us all with pride.”

Of those who medaled, all graduated this June except for Graham Thompson, who will return to the culinary arts program as a senior at Spring Hill High School, and Harper Chapman, who will attend Spring Hill Middle School as a seventh grader.