Montana Students Secure Silver at 2025 SkillsUSA National Championships
A team of talented middle school students from Alberton, Montana, demonstrated exceptional skill and innovation, earning silver medals at the 2025 SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference in Atlanta. The prestigious event, a showcase for America’s future skilled workforce, brought together over 17,500 attendees – students, instructors, industry leaders, and government officials – for a week of competition and collaboration.
Rising Stars in Robotics
Rising ninth-grader Mahlon Manson and seventh-grader Varuna Peeblson, representing the Alberton Panthers robotics team, achieved this remarkable feat in the Middle School Robotics: Urban Search and Rescue category. Their journey to the national stage began with a gold medal win at the Montana SkillsUSA competition in Great Falls, held from April 3–5. This victory secured their place to represent Montana at the national level.
Navigating Rigorous Challenges
The national competition pushed the team’s abilities to the limit, presenting six demanding challenges designed to simulate real-world disaster response scenarios. These included:
- Navigation Course: Successfully guiding their robot through a complex obstacle course against the clock.
- Communication and Collaboration Challenge: Coordinating seamlessly, with Manson (the driver) responding to verbal cues from Peeblson (the spotter) to manipulate and dispose of mock ordnance.
- Camera Navigation Challenge: Utilizing onboard cameras to navigate a confined, HVAC-style duct maze, identifying a target object, and returning it safely.
- Arm Skill Challenge: Demonstrating precision and dexterity by retrieving simulated explosive devices from mailboxes with varying mounting mechanisms.
- Chassis Challenge: Overcoming diverse terrain, including ramps and rough surfaces, while adhering to strict time constraints.
- Main Field Challenge: Participating in a six-minute simulation of an urban disaster zone, locating and safely neutralizing scattered mock ordnances.
This year’s competition featured 11 middle school teams from across the U.S. and its territories, with a total of 43 teams participating in the Urban Search and Rescue robotics events.
A Custom-Built Solution
Manson and Peeblson didn’t rely on off-the-shelf solutions. They designed and built a custom robot specifically tailored for the demands of Urban Search and Rescue, engineered to locate and safely neutralize simulated explosive devices in a mock disaster environment. The team benefited from the guidance of Nathan Morris, Alberton’s Robotics and Industrial Technology instructor, and Patrick Manson, both serving as advisors for the Alberton SkillsUSA Robotics Team and two FIRST Tech Challenge robotics teams.
Morris and Manson accompanied the students to Atlanta, joining approximately 60 other Montana students among nearly 18,000 competitors from across the nation. This marks Manson’s second consecutive year qualifying for the national competition, a testament to his dedication and skill. The team was unfortunately unable to attend last year’s event due to funding limitations.
STEM Thriving in Alberton
The success of the Alberton Panthers robotics team underscores the vitality of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education in the community. Despite recent staffing changes, Alberton High School continues to foster a strong culture of technical learning, with students also competing in welding, welding sculpture, and technical drafting. “STEM is alive and thriving in Alberton,” thanks to passionate educators like Morris and dedicated students like Manson and Peeblson.
SkillsUSA: Building America’s Skilled Workforce
SkillsUSA is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering students, teachers, and industry leaders to cultivate a highly skilled American workforce. The organization provides crucial support for career and technical education at the middle school, high school, and college levels.
Archery Success in Mineral County
In other exciting news from Mineral County, Russell (Rusty) Parkin, Mineral County 4-H Archery Leader, reported that a local archery team member, Jimmie Kelly, secured second place in the nation in Olympic Recurve. Kelly earned one gold and two silver medals at the 4-H Shooting Sports National Championships, held each June in Grand Island, Nebraska.
The achievements of these young Montanans demonstrate the power of dedicated education, innovative thinking, and collaborative spirit, paving the way for a bright future in STEM fields and beyond.
