YORK -- On Friday, there was competition at York's Floyd D. Johnson Technology Center, but there were no balls or baskets or touchdowns. In the Golden Brick Challenge, the contest is mortar and bricks. Build the best, straightest wall, and you win.
The contest meant more, though. Every student who wins the contest or not can take the skill learned in masonry classes and use it to make a living. They might go to college. They might do both.
A York senior, Billy Dover, built his wall next to another senior, Zack Goforth. Dover plans to go into construction after graduation. Goforth said he's going to York Technical College, and can do masonry work on the side.
Daeshawn McClurkin, a student at Chester High School, said he plans to join the U.S. Air Force after graduation. “But I have this skill if I need it or want to use it later,” McClurkin said.
John Neal, a junior from York, plans to become an elementary education teacher, but took the class because “I wanted to learn this, know about how to do it in case I need it.”
York even had one female student in the contest, Vallerie White. She said her uncle is a mason and she wanted to learn about it in case she decides to make a living laying bricks.
The top junior and senior masonry students from the York school district and from Chester and Cherokee county schools participated in the contest to see who could build the best wall.
The classes teach skills. Skills to lay brick and concrete block that could turn into a trade. Nobody knows that better than the brothers who sponsor the contest, Ed and Paul Patterson, both bricklayers who run their own masonry business.
“Not everybody is going to go to college, but there will always be a place in this world for people who can build things and work with their hands,” said Ed Patterson. “Classes like this one give young people a chance to get started. For some, it could be a career.”
York's own school district is proof. The district is building a new high school — and five brick masons building that school started out in masonry classes at Floyd D. Johnson Technology Center.
Combining core high school with technology is not the exception, but the rule at York, which hosted Friday's contest. About 85 percent of the students get some hands-on training at school.
Of 1,084 students at York Comprehensive High School, 847 have some class in the center, said Ron Roveri, director of the technology center at York. The technology center has a dual credit program with York Technical College, and offers automotive tech, agriculture, pre-engineering and more. Students in the building trades literally build a new house every year.
“This is work-based learning, and it gives the students a leg up if they decide that the building trades are their future,” Roveri said. “We try and provide a seamless transition to work or more schooling.”
Construction, like the economy, has been down and employment is down, said the Pattersons who work in it. But construction will rebound with the economy, they said, and tradesmen will have jobs as long as they have skills. Administrators at the S.C. Employment Security Commission echoed what the Pattersons see out there in the real world — a construction economy down now, but poised to rebound.
“Before the recession, there were more construction jobs than people to fill them,” said Annie Reid, area director for the Rock Hill employment security office.
“York County especially is a growing county,” Reid said. “When the economy recovers, growth in construction is bound to continue, and those jobs will come back. The people who have those skills will be at an advantage.”
The teachers at area schools have experience in the trades. Max Randolph, a judge Friday, retired last year after teaching masonry at York's technology center for years. He worked as a mason before that. He was replaced by Ali Patton, whose brother, Jody, teaches the students from Chester County schools. Jody and another Patton brother, Telly, have their own masonry business. All the Pattons learned masonry under their father and now teach it to students.
When the competition was over Friday, Cherokee County's team took first place. Billy Dover, the York senior who's headed into the construction business, took second place for all seniors. Larnell Robinson of Chester took third for juniors.
But what each student learned in that masonry class, they take with them forever in their hands and their heads. They have tangible, real skills. And nobody can take that away from them.
Andrew Dys 803-329-4065
adys@heraldonline.com.
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