Cameron Huff and Kyle Haller are quietly leaving their mark on their school.
Elizabeth Armstrong / The Herald
It’s in the form of a three-dimensional steel cougar logo and 10-foot lettering that hails Lakewood High School and its athletic hall of fame.
Their handiwork is a testament to the welding skills they have learned the past two years at the Sno-Isle Tech Skills Center in south Everett.
Each day, the seniors leave after three morning courses at Lakewood for a vocational program that could well become their livelihoods.
“It would be cool for people to see what we do here,” Huff said recently at the Sno-Isle welding shop.
“And have them come up to us and say, ‘Good job,’” Haller added.
“It would show we did something in high school,” Haller said. “We’re not just a name in the yearbook.”
The students took the cougar image from the school’s letterhead, scanned it into a computer and went from there.
“This is where the mind can meet the hands,” said Sno-Isle welding teacher Bob Throndsen, 48, a welder for 30 years who owns businesses that build hot rods, motorized toys, Radio Flyer wagons, and home and garden artworks.
Sno-Isle welding student projects find their way into numerous Snohomish County communities.
“I don’t want to take businesses away from other shops, but this is a side of us no one knows about,” Throndsen said. “Within reason, we do take jobs in from off the street.”
Huff, 17, and Haller, 18, have been friends since grade school and joined the Sno-Isle welding program together. Huff prefers the intricate, artistic side of the profession; Haller dreams of big projects.
“I would like when people drive their cars across a bridge to know that they are safe,” Haller said.
Welding and metal fabrication is the most requested course among students applying to Sno-Isle Tech. Applications for fall topped out at 141 for 42 slots, leaving a waiting list of 99 would-be welding students. Other top draws are culinary arts and veterinary assisting and grooming.
All told, there are 23 vocational and technical programs at the Sno-Isle Skills Center serving more than 1,000 students in Snohomish and Island counties.
Two returning students next fall will be Lakewood juniors Michael Rose and T.C. Lane-Clayberg, both 17, who helped the seniors on the cougar project. Both say the vocational program makes school more enjoyable.
“I love working with my hands,” Rose said. “There is no way I could work in an office job sitting at a computer all day. It just wouldn’t work.”
Lane-Clayberg agreed. “If I had to sit in an office for an hour, I would go insane.”
Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or stevick@heraldnet.com.
Rose (left), Huff (center) and Haller are proud of their work at Sno-Isle. “It would be cool for people to see what we do here,” Huff said.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
