Sp. Fork student wins big in welding competitions

Nebo School District student Kaitlin Hallam was honored by Bryan Kwapis from Miller Electric at a recent Nebo School District Board of Education meeting for her accomplishments in state and national welding competitions.

For the third year in a row, Kaitlin won the Utah State Fair’s Welding and Fabrication contest. She designed and fabricated a trailer each year in the Spanish Fork High School welding program and utilized the skills she learned in the classroom to create three large custom trailers.

Each trailer was designed to increase her skill level in the process. The trailers included a standard 18-foot flatbed the first year, which earned her a win in the Utah Valley Welding Expo and then the Utah State Fair. The second year, Kaitlin designed and built a 16-foot electric over hydraulic dump trailer and received a perfect score at the state competition. This past year, Kaitlin fabricated a 32-foot electric over hydraulic tilt deck, goose neck equipment trailer and won the Sweepstakes at the Utah State Fair once again.

Kaitlin and her sister, Allison, have together won the State Welding Fabrication Competition for five straight years, giving Spanish Fork High School some deserved recognition. Both girls credit their teacher, Shaun Black, for their accomplishments in the welding field.

The Hallam sisters consider Black to be one of the best in the field of welding and teaching. They said that without Black’s vision of what is possible and his constant encouragement to step out of their comfort zone and accomplish more, they would not have been to win these awards.