Spotlight On Dorchester's Summer Carlson & Welding Program

Photo by Lincoln Journal Star

The Lincoln Journal Star has spotlighted Dorchester High School's Summer Carlson -- and we think she deserves the spotlight.

In a nation that lacks enough skilled workers -- at a time when some people are refusing to work rather than go into demanding but great-paying manufacturing or construction jobs -- Summer is showing she has the skills needed to compete.

She's a role model for other teens -- and other girls.

The Journal Star writes: "The fact that no girls — not one — had ever taken the year-long welding class at Dorchester High School did not faze Summer Carlson. Nor did the fact that she's the first woman to work in the pipe yard at Exeter’s Horizontal Boring & Tunneling, a job that requires a hard hat, some serious welding skills and the ability to haul pipe and drive forklifts and other large vehicles."

Summer will be a senior at Dorchester High this fall.  She obviously has a serious head on her shoulders and knows where her skills are needed.

The newspaper story quotes her as saying: "I plan to stay at Horizontal my whole life. That’s the plan, anyway."

According to the Journal Star, to help fill the nation's skills gap, many educators are trying to encourage more girls to sign up for vocational-skill classes -- everything from engineering and robotics to electronics and welding, all of which are largely dominated by boys.

The article says that "of the 2,668 students who took welding classes in Nebraska's high schools last year, just 10 percent, or 263, were girls."

Here's the heart of the Journal Star story's feature on Summer:

"Carlson, who spent most of her childhood in Oklahoma, said her interest was sparked by friends who were welders and an artist she knows who makes beautiful metal creations.  Her high school northeast of Tulsa didn’t offer much of a welding program, so when her folks decided to move back to Nebraska, where they’d both grown up, she was in luck.

"Dorchester High — part of a K-12 district with 180 students nine miles west of Crete — offered a full-year welding program.  When Carlson started there last year as a junior, she wasn't bothered that boys were the only ones who ever signed up."

Summer said: "I went into it knowing I could do it and I did it, you know?"

Read the full Journal Star story here. 

Let's congratulate Summer on her willingness to follow her passions in a field in which her nation needs her skills.  

And let's also congratulate the educators at Dorchester High for helping her develop those skills and launching her career.