(Jersey City - May 3, 2008) County Prep students competed in the annual SkillsUSA New Jersey State Conference held in Somerset, NJ, at the Garden State Exhibit Center on May 2nd and 3rd, These follow the winter SkillsUSA events that took place in February at the Ocean County Vocational Technical High School.

May 2nd events included The State Banner Design and Promotional Bulletin Board contests. On May 3rd, students competed in Entrepreneurship and First Aid/CPR. These are in addition to the Photography competitions which were held in February. Students competing in each of these events are tested on both leadership ability and technical skills.

Seniors Jean Cantada and Anthony Tran participated in the contest for State Banner Design. They had to create and design a banner which related to a given theme and represented New Jersey. Sophomores Shaili Kapadia and Payal Dave competed in the Promotional Bulletin Board contest. They had to create and design a bulletin board which promoted SkillsUSA and how it prepares students for tomorrow’s workforce. Jean Cantada and Anthony Tran placed 2nd in their contest while Shaili Kapadia and Payal Dave placed 3rd.

Seniors Alexa Dabu, Deonne Francisco, Cynthia Garcia, and Neha Kapadia made up the Entrepreneurship team. They had to create a business plan and send it to the state office to be judged before the state conference. On Saturday morning, they had to present their business plan for UJeans, a company they created, to the judges. The company's business was to provide customized jeans for individuals. They also had to come up with a possible problem that could occur in the first year of business and derive a solution for it. The team earned gold medals for their plan.

Seniors Eleanor Cercenia, Ana Gagarin, and Amit Jani competed in the First Aid/CPR contest. Ana Gagarin brought home a gold medal for the contest, in which students had to demonstrate skills such as checking a pulse, stopping a cut from bleeding and performing CPR.

These contests were held in addition to those that took place earlier in the year at Ocean County Vocational Technical High School on February 2 for the Winter SkillsUSA Competitions. As previously reported, the photography contest was held at Ocean County Vocational High School where Seniors Michael Caroselli, Erik Bradley, and Cerille Avertia not only competed with each other, but with other students throughout the state. They had to create a portfolio, take various shots and print the best ones for the judges. They also had to take a written test to assess their knowledge on photography. Michael took home the gold medal and Erik won the silver.

All in all, County Prep students took 6 gold medals in the First Aid/CPR, Photography and Entrepreneurship competitions; 3 silver medals for Photography and Banner Design; and bronze medal for Promotional Bulletin Board at the New Jersey state SkillsUSA competition. Our County Prep gold medalists will represent New Jersey at the SkillsUSA National Conference held in Kansas City, Missouri during the week of June.

Ms. Mendolla and all of the staff and students at County Prep would like to commend all the participants for their competitive spirit and wonderful accomplishments.