In the spring of 2015, a junior at Potosi High School, Zach Lange, liked welding but had no place to try it out as the high school didn't offer it. Going into his senior year though, he was finally going to have a teacher and the tools to have it taught in high school.
Zach said, “welding was something that I had always been interested in; there was just no place to do it.” Zach’s high school didn’t have room in the master schedule to be able to teach welding. They hired Tracy Brunton to come to the school and knew that she had been teaching welding at her previous school. This led to Zach, my brother, joining the class and finding out that he enjoyed it a lot.
The process of getting the program back together wasn’t easy. Former tech ed teacher Mr. Bull started the process by contacting Superior Welding in April of 2015, knowing that Mrs. Brunton was going to teach welding. The district wanted to know the options available to them for starting up the program again.
The school received a small grant that helped get certain tools and materials. Mr. Bull spoke with my dad, who is a sales rep at Superior Welding. They talked about the options that were available with the funds that were allocated to the welding shop. In May 2015, they sat down with the teachers who were going to be in charge of the program and decided what was necessary for the number of students that were participating in the program. One of the students was my brother Zach, and now that there was a program and he could weld, he enjoyed it so much more.
Some supplies were available in the shop, but they were very outdated and needed to be updated and repaired. The money the school received from the grant helped get updated tools and materials. The school also added some funding to cover whatever wasn't covered by the grant.
There was one more important element that the school needed besides tools and materials to be able to function correctly, and that was the teacher to teach the class. Having an experienced teacher to teach welding was important because they were rebuilding the program that the school once had. Tracy Brunton said, “There were a lot of things that I needed to get fixed before I could start teaching.”
Mrs. Brunton no longer teaches Potosi High School’s welding program since she now focuses on the agriculture side. Mr. Stietz is our welding teacher now. We have many updated and new tools we have gotten in the past few years. Students have been able to gain a very good experience with the program we have. Superior Welding still supplies all our welding supplies, tools, and training.
My dad is still the sales rep who delivers the supplies to our school, my dad is the one who they call if something breaks or goes wrong. My brother is now a welder at Anderson Welding in Platteville, and my brother's workplace is also supplied by my dad at Superior Welding.