DATE: Friday, May 9, 1997                   TAG: 9705090720

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY JEFFREY S. HAMPTON, CORRESPONDENT 

DATELINE: BARCO                             LENGTH:   68 lines

CURRITUCK HIGH VOCATIONAL CLUB SHOWS WINNING IS ITS TOP JOB

An inexperienced Currituck High School vocational club brought home six trophies in a statewide competition recently, and two members will go to the national contest in Kansas City next month.

``To come away with these awards shocks the daylights out of us,'' said Dan Alexander, the school's video productions teacher and one of three advisors to Currituck's Vocational Industrial Club of America. ``The original goal was just to go in and see what it was like.''

The VICA clubs provide extracurricular training for high school students taking vocational courses such as electronics and auto mechanics. The club sponsors annual contests to test a variety of job-related skills.

Several members of the Currituck team struggled through miscues and misinformation and still came out on top.

Take senior Chris Zimbro, for example.

Zimbro competed in the regional contest in March in the job skills category. His task was to perform an auto inspection on his own car. Trouble was, he didn't know he supposed to bring his own car.

He huddled with his adviser, Mark Wootton. The only recourse was to be bold and borrow a car from one of the judges. One of them agreed to the request.

Zimbro's bad luck continued when the hood on the judge's car wouldn't open. Undaunted, he asked to borrow the car of another judge. The inspection went well.

Despite the setbacks, Zimbro had two things in his favor - he is not shy, and he is confident. Zimbro took first place. It didn't hurt that his main competition fumbled his brake job demonstration and a wayward spring flew between the judges' heads.

``I knew what I was doing,'' Zimbro said. He said he has worked on cars all of his life. He also communicates well.

``He spoke to the judges like they were real people,'' Wootton said.

With one contest under his belt, Zimbro knew what to do at the state level and won that one, too. Zimbro will go the nationals with Ralph Elks, winner of the extemporaneous speaking contest.

Elks easily won the regionals, but at the state level the competition stiffened considerably. He felt miserable after he'd finished his speech at the state contest in Winston-Salem.

``I didn't have any confidence I would win,'' Elks said. ``But then, they named me first place. I was ecstatic.''

Sophomore Kenny Rose, a student in video and television production, put together a beautiful one-minute show for the regional contest.

Unfortunately, the judges wanted a four-to-six minute show. Still, his entry was so good he came in second.

Rose and Don Perry finished second in the state with a television production they put together in just 30 minutes.

``Next year, we'll get first,'' Rose said.

``Everything we do has to do with showing them how to become a leader and become a good worker,'' said Kari Miller, CHS electronics teacher and a VICA advisor.

Miller helped form the Currituck VICA chapter just last year without knowing anything about the club. She teamed with Wootton and Alexander, and together they followed the book to establish a new chapter. Miller discovered there had been an active chapter at CHS, but it had disbanded years ago. Now there are about 45 members, and since the recent success, more are asking to join. ``We may not know a lot about the club or what we're doing, but we decided to go in there and show we're proud of where we came from,'' Miller said.

Other participants were Rickey Ringer, Jeremy Golden, Carlton Smith, Addam Graham, Scott Helton, Damon Smith, Katrina Bird, David Xenos and Alton Brickhouse. Smith and Brickhouse took fifth place in current events and electronics technology respectively.

Elks won the Outstanding VICA member award for 1996-97.

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