Clarksville CATS Win Girl Power Competition
by Stephanie Baker
Clarksville’s Career and Technical School (CATS) recently sent five students to compete in Girl Power, an all-female manufacturing competition, with all five placing at the regional level and advancing to be awarded in the top five statewide.
Lian Belden’s project was a wooden butterfly bench with hand-poured blue, white and gold resin cutouts in its wings, complete with a wooden butterfly-shaped footstool hand-painted to match. The bench is portable as it folds to be compact for travel and also includes antennae lights.
“The constant learning process opened up to new opportunities,” said Belden, who even handmade a cobalt blue dress to wear to the state competition to match her project. Her project won both first place in the regional competition in Fort Smith and the state competition in Benton.
Desirae Harris made a rustic end table featuring a metal cutout frame base and a wooden top engraved with her initials. She said she selected the concept after falling in love with the intricate metal design. Harris placed second in multi-tool at regionals and won second place at state.
Adilene Arroyo and Marlen Castro are members of the Family and Consumer Science (FACS) program and worked as a team to build a vanity and chair that can be hidden away as a compact nightstand. They said their goal was to make something usable and practical. Their project was awarded People’s Choice at the regional competition and was among the top five at the state level.
Last year, Evangelina Prieto competed with a CNC cut metal grill made to separate and lay flat to be compact for travel. This year, she took the concept of grill in a different direction, making a larger grill more focused on quality and cooking process than portability. Prieto said she is inspired by her family’s love of quality time and cooking and was excited to compete in this year’s competition with even more “grill power.” She placed second place in CNC Metal at the regional level and was in the top five at state.
Each student designed a tri-fold presentation board detailing every step of the project they chose, showcasing the creative and hands on process of designing and forming their projects. The girls’ future career interests range from nursing to cyber security to welding, but each one mentioned how she had grown from participating, noting growth in technical skills and confidence as well as a shared bond of female friendships in male-dominated trade training.
Belden and Prieto, both seniors who participated in last year’s competition, commented how much the girls-only competition has grown in one year, from 50 to approximately 200 girls competing at the regional level. They also have seen an increase in girls participating in the trades program available at Clarksville High School.
“Don’t be scared to join us,” Prieto said. “You might be surprised by what you can do.”
Richard Grace, founder of Grace Manufacturing in Russellville, donated the Laguna CNC router the girls used to complete some of their projects, while Josh Buscaino from Laguna Tools provided the technical support in setting up the machinery
GIRL POWER COMPETITION– Clarksville High Students competed in Girl Power, a regional all-female manufacturing competition and all placed in the top five in the state in their categories. Competing and displaying their projects were (from left) Lian Belden, Evangelina Prieto, Desirae Harris, Adilene Arroyo and Marlen Castro.
This story appears in the March 19 edition of The Graphic, found online and in businesses throughout Johnson and Franklin counties.
