MANDAN, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – On March 19 and 20 students from Valley City High School and Junior High participated in the Technology Student Association (TSA) conference and competition in Mandan, ND. TSA is the Career and Tech student organization that is associated with Technology and Engineering Education (Tech Ed).

A total of seventeen students attended and participated in several different events. Twelve students came home with medals in the events in which they participated.

In the high school division, Derek Bear, Ezra Hanse, Kael Jenisen and John Lahlum finished in the first ranked position of qualifying rounds of VEX robotics. They choose the Tanner Thomsen and Blake Triebold team as their alliance and the two robots went through the elimination round without a loss to bring home first place medals in VEX robotics.

All high school students take an online test consisting of questions about their knowledge of technology in general before attending TSA. Tanner Thomsen, Blake Triebold and Ezra Hanse were a team that finished in the second seed in the state. During the finals round at the TSA competition, they finished with third place medals.

Owen Plagens, Luke Plagens and Keegan Couture entered On Demand Video, a one minute video created in one afternoon once the criteria is revealed at the conference, and finished with second place medals.

Rachel Sand entered a pallet project in the Vinyl Event and finished with a third place medal. Luke Plagens also brought home third place medals in both Music Production, in which he submitted a music number he created, and in his Future Tech Teacher entry, in which he taught a Tech Ed lesson that he researched. In the middle school categories, Halley Thoreson finished second for her pallet project in Vinyl Design; Josh Lokken and Keegan Couture finished first in VEX robotics.

Annette Beattie, the TSA advisor said, “It was a very good showing from Valley City students at their first TSA competition. I am proud of them all.”