A Humboldt Collegiate Institute (HCI) student won big at a provincial skills competition in Regina held March 15-16.
Justin Lefebvre was awarded a gold medal at the Provincial Skills Competition for his carpentry work.
The Provincial Skills competition involves approximately 400 students from schools around Saskatchewan who are competing in over 40 skilled trade events from baking to robotic design, explained Brian Hinz, Industrial Arts teacher at HCI.
"It is a great opportunity for teachers and students to go down and see what other teachers and students are doing around the province to promote and teach the practical and applied arts," Hinz said.
Hinz has been running an extracurricular skills club at HCI for the past five months.
Several students have come out to the club after school to develop trade-related skills, primarily focused on carpentry and cabinet making.
Hinz, with a little push from HCI principal Keith Thompson, decided to found this club after his exposure to Skills Canada through university, and after travelling to Moose Jaw last year to see what happens in the competition.
This year, Hinz decided to take HCI student Justin Lefebvre to the skills competition in Regina to show him what it was about, and to hopefully spark some interest and knowlege about the provincial competition, "so we could fine-tune our club for school competitions in the future," Hinz noted.
Lefebvre, with previous exposure to carpentry work through his father, uncles and grandfather, "turned out to be the right guy for this particular event," said Hinz.
They showed up at 7 a.m. on March 16 at the Wascana campus of SIAST in Regina, with a full tool box, personal protective equipment, "and no idea what the carpentry task was that the competitors were going to build," Hinz stated.
The task is kept secret until the competition.
Shortly thereafter, Lefebvre was given a set of construction-related blueprints and a pile of lumber, and he was off, building a pergola garden bench.
He had eight hours to complete the project, "but worked extremely well, completing it in only five hours," Hinz noted.
"The judges indicated to me that he had done pretty good, so we decided to hang around Regina until the awards ceremony, which began at 6:30 p.m."
They were extremely happy, he continued, when they found out that Lefebvre had been awarded the gold medal.
He will now be moving on to the National championship, to be held in Edmonton May 13-16.
Lefebvre will be the official Saskatchewan high school representative in carpentry.
"This is a high honour and Justin's family and I are extremely proud of him," Hinz said.
