Tour bus with welders from Wyoming stops in Idaho Falls to visit students
Published at
IDAHO FALLS — With a tour bus, welding rig and exciting giveaways, a group of welders from Wyoming stopped at a technical education school on Wednesday.
Western Welding Academy, located in Gillette, Wyoming, tours across the nation in what’s called “The Blue Collar Tour” and stopped at Idaho Falls School District 91’s Career & Technical Education Center (CTEC).
“The Blue Collar Tour is all about going around and telling blue-collar stories and inspiring this next generation of kids to work with their hands and go to tech schools, join a union, or join a trade,” said Tyler Sasse, founder and president of Western Welding Academy. “(It’s) mostly all about inspiration for these kids, that they have what it takes.”
CTEC students requested the group to come. Trevor Shepherd, a welding teacher at CTEC, did what he could to get the tour in Idaho Falls.
“I applied for it, and they reached out to us, and they said they wanted to come to us for the one stop in Idaho this year,” Shepherd said.
Shepherd knows the importance of welding and says the world revolves around it with cars, buildings and infrastructure. He said it’s important for students to learn and have opportunities.
“We need welders in the world. It’s in high demand. Everyone you talk to — all the local weld shops around here — they all need people. They are all struggling to keep their slots filled, so we are trying to bring up this next generation and introduce them to trades and get them interested in it,” Shepherd said.
Sasse said the tour travels coast to coast to 30 different schools in 30 states in about 10 weeks. They tell students about the academy, and Sasse gives a live presentation of how to weld two pieces of pipe together.
For students like 18-year-old Elijah Meacham, a senior at CTEC, it gives him chances to ask questions.
“Demos are learning opportunities because if you watch them do something, and you say, ‘How do you do that?’ Then they will tell you,” he said.
Meacham told EastIdahoNews.com he is grateful for a school like CTEC, which provides him plenty of learning opportunities like the Blue Collar Tour.
“We have people come in at least twice every month. We hear about scholarships and advanced learning opportunities. We have several classes that we have been told about,” he said. “Several people from Idaho Steel have reached out to us and have given us presentations and told us about scholarships and internships that they have.”
Meacham said he’s been a blacksmith for a little over three years. He likes building go-karts and working on other projects that need welding, so it was a natural step for him to learn.
“There’s a lot of opportunities in welding. Welding is a really difficult process to robotize, so there’s going to be a lot of jobs, a lot of really well-paying jobs for a long, long time,” Meacham said.
Sasse said meeting with students is incredible.
“(Going on tour) really allows us time to connect with the youth and see some of the struggles that they are struggling with and incorporate that into our curriculum and how to make them more successful. Our big focus is work ethic, accountability and integrity,” Sasse said.
Idaho Falls was the Blue Collar Tour’s second stop. Its first stop was at East Helena High School in Montana on Tuesday. The next stop is in Castle Rock, Washington, on Friday. The tour ends in late February. Click here to learn more.
