Four Deer Lakes students - Paiton Yeager, Savannah Lentz, Morgan McCloskey and Elise Schaeffer - will be A.W. Beattie Career Center representatives at the 2024 SkillsUSA Pennsylvania Western Region Fall Leadership Conference from Nov. 6-8 at the Seven Springs Mountain Resort.

There will be 10 other A.W. Beattie students who attend the conference. The goal of the annual conference is for SkillsUSA officers from 19 Western Pennsylvania career centers to build leadership and networking skills.

Paiton (President), Savannah (Reporter), Morgan (Treasurer) and Elise (Secretary) were elected as SkillsUSA officers at the Career Center.

Paiton will be the Career Center’s Head Delegate Representative.

Paiton, a third-year student in the Advertising Design program, will vote on different competitions like the Pin and T-Shirt Design competitions.

“The conference is a fun experience to get to bond with people you normally don’t get to see,” Paiton said. “It’s also a great opportunity to collaborate and learn new leadership skills.”

The conference is a precursor to regional, statewide and national SkillsUSA competitions.

“Competing is an opportunity to go outside of your comfort zone and to see how far you can go with your skills,” Paiton said. “It’s not always comfortable to speak in front of other people, but that’s part of what my group did last year, so we had to practice and work together to decide what we would say and how we would say it. It’s a steppingstone to developing a variety of skills. It’s also a way to see yourself improve each year.”