Brabec And Olson Win Steel-Making Competition
Two Leigh Community Schools senior students, Carter Brabec and Jared Olson, recently competed and won the Ken Iverson Project, which is a steel-making competition amongst area high schools sponsored by Nucor. The competition included creating a steel sculpture of your interpretation of the theme “History of My Hometown.”
Jared and Carter chose to create a replica of Leigh’s iconic water tower, constructed in 1946. They also included a metal portion with the numbers 1887 for the year Leigh was founded.
Leigh industrial tech teacher, Mr. Jarrod Bazata, oversaw the project, and he noted, “I feel that we had one of the more creative ideas. A water tower is a symbol of your town and something people can see from miles away. Mr. Fischer suggested the water tower idea, and Jared, Carter, and I ran with it.”
Any area schools could participate, and there were two rounds to the competition. The schools that moved on to the final round of the contest were Leigh, Stanton, Norfolk, Humphrey Public, Boone Central, O’Neill, and Crofton.
These projects were featured on display at the Norfolk Area Home and Garden show at the end of March.
The final scoring was a combination of judges’ preference and public voting. Due to the generosity of the community, Leigh had the most community votes by a long shot and placed third in the judges’ poll, giving Leigh enough to win 1st place! The placing finished as follows: Leigh - 1st, O’Neill – 2nd, Stanton – 3rd, and Crofton – 4th.
Contestant Jared Olson stated, “When we started the project, it seemed like it was going to be hard to accomplish, but with the help of students and staff we were able to get it done and bring home gold.”
Mr. Bazata continued, “I am very proud of Jared and Carter for this project. They really put their heads down and worked hard on not only building it, but also all the planning that went into it. They did everything from the building to the designing, even working with Mr. Korus to figure out the angles of certain pieces.
“Overall, I am very pleased with how our project turned out. The boys really stepped up to the challenge and took pride in their work to represent this town and community. We definitely have some things we need to make better for our future competitions, but this was a great first year of competition for the Ken Iverson Project.”
Carter and Jared’s winning project will be on display in Norfolk for one year and will then be returned to the Leigh community!