SCS students and teachers passionate about tech, trades
- Chris Abbott
- May 21
- 2 min read
Chris Abbott
Editor
Simcoe Composite School’s annual Spring Sale and Car Show shifted into high gear on May 10.
There was an expanded car show, plant sale, woodworking sale, cosmetology program face and nail painting for children, and a BBQ.
It featured the school’s famous ’56 Volkswagen Beetle project and Jason and Sandi Hardie’s massively-powerful Celtic Thunder drag racing funny car, all in support of the school’s tech education department.
“This car will be out (drag racing) for the first time this year,” said Jason Hardie. “We said that last year, but…”
“This is the year,” Sandi nodded.
Jason, who teaches at Conestoga College in trades and apprenticeship, also works on another drag racing team.
“I’m pretty passionate about young people and trades. That’s one of our big pushes with this car is to get young people out and get them interested in trades – fixing and doing. If anybody is ever interested in hearing about trades, I’m more than happy to talk to them about it.”
“They’ve got some great teachers here – they are passionate about what they do. That’s why we wanted to get involved.”
“It’s a bigger turnout than last year,” said Simcoe’s Phil Theriault who brought his yellow 1973 Plymouth Barracuda muscle car to the school’s third auto show. “It’s fairly new, so it takes a while sometimes for word to get out about these things.
“It’s very typical of most of the car shows – it’s a social event for all the enthusiasts,” said Theriault, who goes to summer/fall shows in Simcoe, Delhi and a Monday cruise night in Port Dover.
“Everybody’s welcome to come.”
Ronda Nix teaches Green Industries courses at SCS, which includes horticulture, landscape, agriculture and floristry.
“I just had a student get the (floristry) silver medal at the Skills Ontario competition this week – it was about six-and-a-half hours of designing,” said Nix, who was selling plants near the greenhouse. “That was very exciting. Our third medal while I’ve been teaching at SCS.
“There was over 2,700 competitors overall at Skills Ontario in Toronto, in everything – construction, landscaping… it’s all the skilled trades. Secondary and post-secondary. If you’ve never been, it is something to see. It’s the future of our skilled trades. It’s the next generation and it’s amazing. It’s incredible. It’s pretty much a four-day event for me but I love it.”
Simcoe Composite’s tech program includes construction, tech design (drafting and architectural design) and communications technology.
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