Northeast State students win state SkillsUSA medals

BLOUNTVILLE — Students from Northeast State Community College have once again had a strong performance in SkillsUSA state competition. Northeast State students won eight gold medals and a total of 13 medals in the competition against the best from the Volunteer State. The Tennessee State Leadership and Skills Conference was once again held at the Chattanooga Convention Center from March 15-18. It was not just the students who took home medals, as a Northeast State faculty member was also honored with a trophy. The eight gold medalists and state champions from Northeast State are as follows: • Connor Blaylock, architectural drafting; • Will Cable, technical drafting; • Corey Green, facilitation, leadership in facility management; • Emmalee Johnson, automotive collision appraisal technology; • Colton Osborne, CNC 2-axis; • Ella Parsons, automotive finishing technology; • James Shirk, CNC 5-axis; • Josie Tonies, job skill demonstration A. The silver medalists are: • Rose Bleckley, job skill demonstration O; • Teammates Dalton Whitehead and James Baker, additive manufacturing. The bronze medalists are: • Azriel Hendricks, programming; • Teammates Wyatt Robinson and Christian Lee, additive manufacturing; • Jordan Shuler, automotive service technology. For some of the students, it is not the first time they have won medals in SkillsUSA competition, some at the even higher level of national competition. One of these is Rose Bleckley, who won the national gold medal last year in job skills demonstration. Johnson won silver in national competition last year. Cable is in his first year at Northeast State, but he now has three gold medals. His other two gold medals came when he was at Hampton High School, where he won a state gold medal his freshman year and again his senior year. Christian Lee also won a gold medal in additive manufacturing his senior year at Hampton High School. Some of the other students haven't previously won SkillsUSA state-level medals, but they have been recognized in other areas. Corey Green attended Elizabethton High School, where he was three-time state champion in men's ensemble. Music wasn't his only extracurricular activity as a Cyclone. He also participated in the state tournament in football. Josie Tonies is from Chuckey-Doak High School. She didn't compete in SkillsUSA in high school, but she did compete in FFA, where she finished third in the region in dairy competition. Potential employers also recognize her winning personality. She hopes to be on a winning team as a race car mechanic in NASCAR. She hasn't been hired by a team at that level yet, but she has an offer from a race team on dirt tracks. The award-winning faculty member was Assistant Dean of Technologies Ray Acker, who received the 2026 SkillsUSA Distinguished Administrator Leadership Award. Acker said the thing he liked most about the award was that it comes as a result of being nominated by the students. Another faculty member who enjoys the SkillsUSA competition is Daniel Arnett, who taught many gold medalists at Hampton High School before taking on the job at Northeast State. He especially enjoys it when his former high school students who have gone to work have come back to community college to study under him, such as Dalton Whitehead. After he learned that Arnett was teaching at Northeast State, Whitehead decided to pursue his dream of studying engineering design. Back in high school, Arnett taught Whitehead how to win by competing with a balsa wood bridge. In his latest competition, he competed by creating a catapult after parts he manufactured in order to launch a Lego man. No one said that competing to be the best couldn't be fun.