Senior Colton Jenkins began competing in SkillsUSA last year because he thought it seemed fun and “wanted to see what it was like.”

Less than a year later, he placed sixth in nationals for technical drafting and received a Skill Point Certificate for outstanding work.

SkillsUSA is a nationwide organization that prepares students for jobs in various categories, like welding, culinary arts and barbering. Jenkins chose to pursue technical drafting, which is creating detailed blueprints of machines.

Jenkins made it to the national championship after winning the Kansas state competition in April.

“When I won state, I was, like, so excited that I was gonna get to go to nationals, because nobody’s ever done that before,” Jenkins said.

Jenkins was at nationals in Atlanta earlier this summer. His competition lasted two days. For eight hours each day, he replicated drawings of different parts of a rocket on a computer provided by the high school. He didn’t know he was creating a rocket until the second day, when he got all the drawings and the final product.

It turns out Jenkins was recreating the blueprints for NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, said his mother, Amber Jenkins, who also attended nationals.

She said it was intimidating to see everyone’s different setups as they participated in the technical drafting competition. She watched her son compete with the other state winners in a big, open arena in the Georgia World Congress Center.

“You had people who had, like, desktop setups with massive screens and, you know, this and that, and these weird mouses and all the things,” she said. “Where you had people like Colton, where he was just comfortable with a laptop.”

Jenkins said he was shocked when he found out he placed sixth.

“I did not think I did that well, because there was, like, one big thing I messed up on,” Jenkins said. “So I was really, really shocked that I placed that high.”

Scott Lickteig, his adviser and teacher, also attended the event. Jenkins said Lickteig taught him everything he knows.

“He’s an amazing teacher,” Jenkins said. “He pushes us to be, like, the best we could be.”

Jenkins, who has taken engineering classes with Lickteig since eighth grade, said Lickteig pushed him to compete in SkillsUSA. Amber Jenkins said she is thankful for the impact Lickteig has had on her son.

“I lovingly called him coach,” she said.

Lickteig said Jenkins has always been the student who challenges him to be better as a teacher “because of his thirst for knowledge.” He said Jenkins took what he learned and ran with it.

“In some ways, it’s kind of a culmination of what we did every year, all year, from really his freshman year until now, competing in nationals,” Lickteig said. “I couldn’t have had more pride in anything I do.”

Jenkins hopes to return to nations next summer and has his eye on the podium.

Amber Jenkins said she thinks he might have an advantage next year because it won’t be his first time and he’ll know what to expect.

Lickteig wants to bring more students to nationals, too. Jenkins won the gold medal in technical drafting at state, but Eudora High swept the category and took the top four places in Kansas. Lickteig called it a “dream year.” 

Jenkins said even though technical drafting is an individual competition, teamwork in the classroom helped them all find success.

This was the district’s third year competing in the SkillsUSA competitions, Lickteig said. The district has been a member of SkillsUSA for 20 years, though. Lickteig said this was the first year any student got a medal, and the first year someone qualified for nationals.

Lickteig said he’d like to see students from other categories in the championships, too, like public speaking.

Traveling to the championships in Atlanta is expensive, so Lickteig said he’s already working on group fundraising for next year. He said he doesn’t want expenses to be the reason someone can’t go to nationals. Lickteig found private donors to pay for Jenkins to attend this year.

When Jenkins graduates, he hopes to pursue engineering at Kansas State University. He doesn’t know what kind of engineering he wants to do yet, but he’s taking Lickteig’s Topics in Engineering class this fall. 

Amber Jenkins said he is also applying to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Georgia Institute of Technology. 

Lickteig hopes that wherever his students end up, these experiences prepare them for life outside of the classroom.

“My goal is to give them life skills,” Lickteig said. “So, no matter what their career choice is beyond my room, they have life skills that are applicable in whatever career they want to pursue.”

Reach reporter Bella Waters at [email protected].