Most days, Jack Harris leaves Winslow for the welding shop at Northland Pioneer College (NPC) in Holbrook, where he has spent two years learning to read blueprints, set machines and turn raw steel into clean work. This month that work carried him much farther from home, all the way to Atlanta, Ga., where he earned a national bronze medal in welding.
Harris, a 2025 homeschool graduate, found the program almost by accident, after his mother heard from another family that NPC’s welding classes were worth a look. He had always wanted to work with his hands and the trade clicked in a way he did not expect. “I said, yeah, sure,” Harris said. “I’ve always wanted to do some kind of manly job. And it really clicked. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had.”
The medal came at the SkillsUSA national competition, held June 1-5 in Atlanta. Harris had taken silver at the state contest in Phoenix and normally only state gold medalists advance. When the first-place finisher couldn’t make the trip, the spot fell to him. “I wasn’t even supposed to be there,” Harris said. “They’re like, ‘second place, if you want to go, now’s your chance.’ So I’m like, ‘yeah, sure, I’ll totally do it.’”
He finished third in the country. Along with the bronze, Harris said he came home with a new welding hood, a welder valued at about $1,200, an oxy-fuel cutting set worth about $560 and $800 in cash. The haul is more than a trophy. He already has a garage at home with power and a concrete floor and he plans to keep practicing there outside the school shop.
Harris started welding through NAVIT (Northern Arizona Vocational Institute of Technology), which allows qualifying high school students take NPC career and technical education classes for free. After aging out of the program following his first year, he kept going on scholarships from NPC’s Friends and Family fund, and he credited KGJ Roofing with a $3,000 scholarship last year and another this year toward his associate degree. “All the people who’ve helped me along the way, the people giving me scholarships, I actually have hardware that I can show them that I really do value the education and other people’s time,” Harris said about his bronze metal.
His instructor, Wesley King, pushed students to enter contests whether they thought they had a show and that advice shaped how Harris approached the season. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a first year, it doesn’t matter if you have no chance at all, you need to do it for the experience,” Harris said, recalling King’s pitch. He spent extra mornings and afternoons in the shop before nationals, taking advantage of as much time as the school would give him.
At nationals, competitors rotated through stations that tested different corners of the trade. They welded MIG, stick, aluminum and dual-shielded flux core, cut with plasma and oxy-fuel, took a written knowledge test and, in a visual inspection round, graded other people’s welds for flaws like lack of fusion, undercut and overlap. Judges scored each piece on appearance, on whether it matched the blueprint and on whether it fit together, though the projects weren’t built to be useful just to judge technique.
Blueprint reading was where the pressure showed. NPC teaches it in class, but the contest demanded more, and a single misread symbol cost him points after he flipped two welds. It wasn’t enough to knock him off the podium, though walking the floor afterward and sizing up the competition, he wasn’t sure he’d placed at all. “I was looking around at a lot of [other people’s] pieces and thought ‘these are really good,’” he said. He said he had no idea how the points would add up or deduct and didn’t think he would get a metal after seeing the work of his competition.
If there’s a lesson the trade keeps teaching him, Harris said, it’s patience. Beginners tend to rush, cranking the heat to move fast and starting before they understand the assignment. “You can’t go fast. The main thing people try to do is they’ll try to go super hot so they can go super fast.”
Away from competition, Harris has already put the skill to work. He repaired a sign for his church, Winslow’s First Baptist Church, and made his own belt buckle that he wears every day, a metal plate with his name on it, cut with plasma and trimmed with twisted TIG wire. “It’s like the thing … that shows that I’m a welder that I don’t even have to talk about,” he said. “People can just see it.”
Down the road, he’s eyeing pipeline work or the ironworkers, somewhere to build experience and savings before striking out on his own with a mobile welding truck. Pipeline work would likely mean leaving Winslow for a while, but he’s lived here his whole life and doesn’t plan to stay gone. When asked if he pictures having his welding business in Winslow or the surrounding area, he said he loves the climate of Arizona and expects after gaining experience, he’ll come back to start his business.
NPC students won 20 medals at the SkillsUSA Arizona state competition in April in Phoenix, placing in welding, construction, cosmetology, automotive and firefighting. Harris’ silver there became a ticket to Atlanta, and a national bronze medal he gets to bring back to the high desert.
