Kamron Thomas, a senior from Blount High School, and George McAlman, a junior from Williamson High School, recently became the first students ever from Faulkner Career Technical Center to pass the AWS welding qualification test using 7018 electrode. The AWS test is a difficult weld because it is done in a vertical 3G and overhead 4G position. The test was conducted at WESCO Welding Supply, an AWS certified testing facility in Pritchard, AL.

Tim Devargus is the welding instructor at Faulkner Career Technical Center.

Wallace State Community College in Hanceville has another national championship - this one from welding student Joey Foster, who earned the gold medal in welding at the national SkillsUSA competition in Kansas City, Missouri. His instructor is Jim Thompson.

Charles Hardy, carpentry instructor at Northwest-Shoals Community College, received the 208 Chancellor's Award as he was named the Alabama Community College System Technical Faculty Member of the Year. Hardy is the first NW-SCC employee to wind the award since 2002 and the first technical instructor to win the award in college history.

The Daily Home (AL) (8/23, Grass) reported, "Winterboro High School teacher Kim Knight's dedication to her work and her students earned her the Outstanding New Career and Technical Teacher Award by the Alabama Association for Career and Technical Education. Knight received the award last month at 'Pathways to Success,' the Alabama Career and Technical Education Professional Development Conference in Birmingham." She "teaches business and marketing education to grades 7 through 12 and is the site coordinator for the Business and Marketing Academy at WHS." She is also "heavily involved with the school's Future Business Leaders of America, which she helped earn a ranking among the top 10 of such programs in Alabama." Knight said, "I use any kind of technology I can to give them more experience and more knowledge." Knight has "been a member of AACTE since 2005."

PRESS RELEASE
August 24, 2008

For Immediate Release

Congratulations Doug Hamrick!!

Second place in AYES-SPX National Instructor of the Year

Detroit, MI July 2008 Hamrick placed second in the balloting for the AYES-SPX Instructor of the Year, and also placed Walker County Center of Technology in the top ten Schools of Excellence for AYES.

AYES is a national "School to Career" initiative that places exceptional students enrolled in automotive technology, into new car dealerships, the summer before their senior year. It is recognized as the premier program for Automotive Technical Education in the US.