Bringing together over 6,000 state champions in more than 100 skilled trades and leadership categories, SkillsUSA holds an annual competition — the largest career and technical education showcase in the country.
One of those competitors, SLCC Visual Art and Design summer 2025 graduate Bess Hayes, was in awe of the entire experience.
“There were thousands and thousands of people and competitions for all sorts of different things from construction work to CSI to a drone obstacle course. It’s a huge competition that I hadn’t ever heard of,” explained Hayes, who won the gold medal in Graphic Communications.
The SkillsUSA Championships is a year-long journey that starts in local SkillsUSA chapters across the country. Local winners move on to district or regional tournaments, where they compete against peers from other schools. Regional winners advance to state-level competitions each spring and earn the opportunity to compete on the national stage at the SkillsUSA Championships every June.
Nathan Pickett, the state director of SkillsUSA Utah, said when students like Hayes achieve national champion status, it’s the result of dedication, guidance from advisors, and a desire to improve. He added that SkillsUSA provides students with hands-on experience that enhances both their technical abilities and self-confidence.
“Winning a medal is exciting, and winning gold against the best in the country is an incredible achievement, but the bigger impact is how these experiences prepare students for their careers and help them grow personally,” Pickett said.
Beyond gold, silver, and bronze medals, competitors can receive scholarships, industry tools, and even job offers right on the competition floor.
The three-day event was action-packed. Hayes spoke about the experience.
“[On] Tuesday, we had an orientation, and then a tour of a print company that builds printers, and they showed us what their printers can do,” Hayes recalled. “Then, [on] Wednesday, we had about an hour [of] learning and then practicing six different skills [and] different tasks. So, we had about an hour for each of them. Thursday was the actual competition, and again we had an hour for each of those different skills or parts of the competition.”
This head-to-head competition of skilled and leadership classifications was hosted at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, a 1.79 million-square-foot facility.
The core philosophy of the SkillsUSA Championships is to recognize student excellence, engage industry professionals to directly assess student performance, and ensure that classroom training remains aligned with employer needs.
SLCC Assistant Professor of Visual Art & Design Anamaye Lanayru won a silver medal at the 2018 SkillsUSA National Championships. As an educator and former competitor, she understands how a diverse skill set will allow her students to keep their options open.
“I think that it’s a good reminder of the different skills the students will need to be successful in their field as well as showing them other options,” Lanayru said. “Most of my students are focused in graphic design; however, I do impress upon them that there are great opportunities in similar and adjacent fields.”
The Graphic Communications competition included several components: preparing and printing a job using a digital printing device, creating and preflighting a print-ready file with Adobe software, completing exercises on offset press simulator software, tackling production planning challenges, and completing a graphic arts knowledge exam.
Hayes’ parents were astonished as much as her.
“Like me, they hadn’t ever heard of this competition and so it was a surprise in a lot of ways,” said Hayes.
Lanayru reached out to Hayes about her qualification for the competition and the opportunity to have access to other tools.
“I spoke to Bess about what I had done in the competition and that a lot of what she had already learned in her classes would be good,” Lanayru said. “Also, for this particular discipline in the competition, they also have some training on site, since not everyone can have access to some of the machinery or tools.”
After exploring options and consulting with a few universities, Hayes has chosen to enter the workforce directly after SLCC graduation, saying that others have joined the workforce successfully.
Hayes was grateful to SLCC and Professor Lanayru.
“It was a great opportunity to go and not have to worry about all the minutia of the financial aspect of it and focus on the competition. I appreciated [the] opportunity and that my teacher knew about it,” said Hayes.
