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FHS media students win four gold medals at SkillsUSA Regionals

Foothill High School media students win gold in four major contests at the SkillsUSA Regional Competition. Next contests: San Diego.

By ALI WATKINS
fhspress.com Staff
Posted March 14, 2016

Many may not realize that Foothill High School has an outstanding digital media department. On February 27, five students in Steve Dommer’s media program entered four major competitions sponsored by SkillsUSA. FHS students Mike Noga, Vadim Lubko, Nadia Long, Victor Garcia, and Lucas Saechao brought home the gold – first place -- in four separate events at the high school level. These four competitions were in photography, graphic design, and video. Sahara Peters also won bronze in photography.

SkillsUSA is an educational program that applies to career and technological education (CTE). All of Dommer’s classes provide these learning opportunities.

“Definitely a worthwhile experience,” said Garcia, a gold winner of the TV and video production competition. Garcia and his partner, Lucas Saechao, made a one-minute commercial that revolved around the theme, “The Difference Matters,” as prescribed by the contest rules. They used humor to their advantage in the commercial. At the end of the showing of their commercial, the judges asked them some questions about their video production, and this was scored as part of the competition.

“SkillsUSA was a great and fun experience that puts all your knowledge to the test,” Lubko said about his pin design competition. Being part of the graphic design classes, he was able to win the gold in this event. Long also won gold in another design competition, T-shirt design. In these two events, both were to create a logo representing SkillsUSA and California for either the pin or the t-shirt. The trick in this event is to not only make a great logo but also to size it specifically to the object.

A group photo of students at the Skills USA competition, roll over the image to highlight the FHS students

Students at the SkillsUSA competition representing reigon four. Roll over the image to highlight FHS students. Photo courtesy of Roman Rykun.

That's where Dommer’s program comes in. He teaches how to do that efficiently in his computer graphics classes.

In the photography competition, Noga and Peters competed. They had to bring two mounted or matted photographs to the competition. For the competition they were to take photos on site for one hour, then create a composite in Photoshop representing "Beauty and CTE" in the next hour.

“I have about three years of experience in photography and design,” Noga stated. Because of his experiences with Digital Imaging and the fhspress.com Video Crew, he was able to win first place.

The SkillsUSA State competition is April 1-2 in San Diego, with winners from there advancing to Nationals in Louisville, Kentucky in June.

“I'm proud of the fact that students from my classes entered four major contests at the regional SkillsUSA competition,” said Dommer. “They came away with four gold medals. We're doing something right here at Foothill.”

ali.watkins@fhspress.com

LINKS TO STUDENT WORK

MIKE NOGA
Football
Rock Concert
Composite

VADIM LUBKO
Pin Design
Yosemite
Night Driving

NADIA LONG
T-Shirt

VICTOR GARCIA and LUCAS SAECHAO
Video (click)

SAHARA PETERS
Cars
Goose

FOOTHILL HIGH SCHOOL fhspress.com SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA