May 20, 2016 at 2:44 p.m.
Rhinelander students win automotive competition at Nicolet
Rhinelander students win automotive competition at Nicolet
Led by their teacher Josh Legrey, all four of the students who competed placed in the top 10. Senior Jed Everson took first place, senior Lucas Price took second, sophomore Riley VanDoren took fifth, and junior Sam Julson took sixth.
RHS Automotive Class
Legrey, who has 15 years teaching experience including two at RHS, said it was a wonderful opportunity for the students.
"It was a great experience for the students to apply what they've learned in the automotive class," Legrey said. "Their hard work really paid off and they got to see the benefit of all the work they've done."
It was a bittersweet moment for Legrey, who will not be returning to RHS next year.
"I'm really proud of them," Legrey said. "The competition let them get a feel for the real world experience."
RHS has had an automotive program for over 45 years, offering students, a full system approach, according to Legrey.
The students learn about all of the systems in vehicles, as well as computer diagnostics, the ShopKeep Pro program, and how to use tools to run scans.
Legrey said the program is great for students, and offers them another way to challenge themselves academically.
He pointed to an older trailer in the shop.
"See, I know what's wrong with this, and it would only take me a few minutes to fix it back at home," Legrey said. "But I brought it in, and I'm going to tell the students, 'Hey, find out why this trailer isn't working,' and they'll go over it and find it, hopefully."
Legrey said there are a lot of learning opportunities in automotive class and added that he glad that Nicolet College offers a program for students after high school.
"They can see that there's something they can do with the knowledge they got here," Legrey said. "I also want to thank Nicolet for putting on the competition, and thank the community for coming together to donate prizes to make this a great opportunity for the students."
Nicolet College Automotive Competition
The competition featured 19 student from Rhinelander, Crandon, Mercer, Tomahawk and Northland Pines high schools. First prize included a $500 scholarship to Nicolet College's automotive program and a set of speakers and stereo donated by Sounds and Motion in Rhinelander, as well as a traveling trophy engraved with the winner's name and high school.
All students received a bucket of prizes for work in the automotive field that included hats and T-shirts donated by businesses from around the Northwoods.
The students competed in a number of stations that challenged their knowledge in a wide variety of areas.
"The first station was building electronic circuits and recording the results," Everson said. "Second station was part identification and making some measurements. The station after that was suspension and steering component identification. The station after that was using a scan tool, running a diagnostic scan on the vehicle and then identifying the problem and pointing it out. The station after that was working with some differentials, checking backlash and proper tolerances with a dial indicator. The following was working with brakes, checking rotor runout, rotor thickness, maximum and minimum tolerances. The final station was working with a program called Shopkeep Pro, its a program that Nicolet uses for a lot of the automotive work and we, as the high school, are really privileged to be able to use. And they'd give us a list of different vehicles and the problem and the procedure, based on the vehicle."
Everson, who didn't expect to win first place but was excited nonetheless, has big plans for the future. This summer he'll start an apprenticeship working with sheet metal fabricating in Tomahawk. He said the competition was a great starting off point for him.
"It was really a learning experience," he said. "You find out what you know and what you don't know. And I think the best part was being able to be out there and talking with the instructors and seeing what the program out there is really about."
Price, who took second, is already working full-time at an automotive company in Rhinelander and is planning to enroll in Nicolet College's automotive program in the fall.
Daleth Mountjoy may be reached at [email protected].
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