WEYBURN – Weyburn Comp Grade 12 student Camryn Greve came home with a gold medal from the National Skills Canada competition, and admitted she was “shocked” to hear her name announced as the top winner of her category.
She was one of four students from Weyburn to take in the national competition, held in Quebec City from May 29 to June 1, and competed in the IT Office Software applications category.
The other competitors were Sy Boquida, Andrew Bratrud and Niegel Zagada.
Camryn had two days of competition, sandwiched between the opening ceremonies on Wednesday, which was much like a pep rally, then the results were announced at the closing ceremonies on Saturday, when the medal winners were named.
“I didn’t find out until the closing ceremonies,” she said. “I heard the bronze medal winner, I heard the silver medal winner, and I thought, ‘well somebody else is going to win gold, and I have no idea who it is …’
When she heard her name announced for the gold medal, “I was shocked. I was completely shocked.”
Her mother, Trisha, added, “I asked her how she did on the first day of competition, and she said, ‘oh mom, I did terribly. I had no idea what I was doing.’”
For her competition, Camryn was given a scenario of working for the Quebec City Seafood Association, and there were four parts to the assignment.
On the first day, she worked in Word for the morning, and Excel in the afternoon; the next day, she worked on Powerpoint in the morning, then she integrated the three parts for the final section of the project.
While they were not told what criteria they would be judged on, she said afterward she was told they judged in part on the creativity and attractiveness of the documents produced, as well as how well they used the IT programs for the assigned task.
Camryn represented Saskatchewan and was up against students from Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland. Ontario won bronze, and Quebec won the silver medal in this category.
“It was amazing to meet people from everywhere across Canada,” she said of the competition, noting the event itself was “immense”, with a long list of trades and skills taking part. “It was very interesting … and it was very loud.”
All of the competitors were together in one huge venue, all intermixed together.
Trisha was able to go around and see all of the competitors, and she noted while the noise level was loud, the competitors were all very focused on their particular projects and weren’t really distracted by all of the other contestants.
The organizers brought in elementary school groups also, estimated at around 6,000 children who toured through to see the event.
“They were just watching us, looking at my computer screen,” said Camryn with a chuckle.
After the closing ceremonies, Team Sask members went to tour Old Quebec to see all of the historical sites.
Team Saskatchewan had around 50 students altogether, and the group had 85 in total including the chaperones and advisors. The team was not allowed to have teachers or advisors along, like all of the other provinces, so Camryn had to largely operate on her own.
The three WCS teachers of these four students wanted to accompany them, but due to sanctions or the threat of sanctions, the Sask Skills committee decided to have the parents or caregivers go with the students, so no funding was available for the teachers, even when sanctions were no longer an issue. The teachers were Margot Arnold, Colton Lund and Rebecca Olson.
Camryn is also preparing for the Grad 2024 ceremonies, as she will be the class valedictorian.
