Angela Burger, a senior in the welding program at the Marion County Area Technology Center, is a first-year SkillsUSA attendee participating in the welding sculpture competition.
David McCoy, the lead welding teacher at Pleasure Ridge Park High School (Jefferson County), has taken the program from its beginning in an old locker room to a bustling program with 141 students in just six years.
Steven Thomas didn’t take the “traditional” route to become the educator he is today. After graduating high school, Thomas did not initially attend college with the goal of becoming a teacher. Instead, he chose to apply the skills he learned in his agriculture classes, under teachers William Wallace Evans and Matt Chaliff at Taylor County High School, to pursue a career in welding.
David McCoy, a high school welding teacher at Pleasure Ridge Park High School (Jefferson County Public Schools), has been named a winner of the 2023 Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence. The price comes with $50,000 for his school’s welding program.