HRHS sending three to Skills nationals

competitor Lucas Feeley, now in his fourth year of competition, the return to in-person was crazy.

“We went from the regional competition at Lakeland College, which was a pretty small venue in comparison to the Expo Centre in Edmonton,” said Feeley. “We got there and we’d have to record our video and have to run across the building (to get shots) and run back, it was a lot of work.”

Feeley explained the provincial video production contest was centred around the topic of artificial intelligence (AI).

“For provincials, we get there, nerves are building, and then we get the topic, which was, ‘with the rise of AI, are skilled trades still important,’ which kind of throws us off, which we thought was interesting.

“Our video was more being afraid of the AI than learning, while creative individuals can still use it as a tool, and use it to better whatever trade they’re already in.”

Feeley and Manaloto have competed at nationals together for the last two years, and after losing both years, they’re hungry for national gold.

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A lot of hard work is paying off for three Holy Rosary High School (HRHS) students as they prepare for Skills Canada Nationals in Winnipeg.

Nationals are being held at Winnipeg’s RBC Convention Centre from May 24-27 and HRHS will be represented in the photography and video production categories.

Grade 12 student Brynt Belizar will be shooting his way to the top in photography while Lucas Feeley and Jerico Manaloto, also Grade 12 students, will be thinking outside the box as they compete against the best video production teams in Canada.

Holy Rosary’s communications media teacher, Skye Ferguson, couldn’t be happier with her students’ successes after watching them learn, compete, and grow over the years.

“This group of kids I’m bringing to Winnipeg, I’ve taught them all since Grade 8, so it’s been cool to watch their skills progress and grow over the last five years,” she said last week. “We’re going out with a bang.”

With nationals starting in less than a week, Ferguson explained it’s time to buckle down and train.

“I have to train the photography and video production kids,” she said. “They have their scopes and we do training to make sure they’re prepared. Training, time-wise, is the biggest thing. We have to make sure we can do things in the proper amount of time.

“Some of the stuff we don’t know, we get it there, so I give them a broad topic to make sure they feel confident and comfortable, whatever topic they get they can be successful with.”

Ferguson also explained HRHS has competed in Skills Canada nationals for the last four years straight, with this being the first to return to in-person competitions.

“This is a totally different ballpark,” she said. “We have to take all our equipment; we fly out our Macs, we fly out our camera equipment, all of that.”

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