Students from the SCILL Center recently graduated and one of the students in the class of 2011 is Darren Harrell of Plymouth, who not only graduated with honors from the Automotive Certification Program, but did well in national competition.
“I’ve been trying for some scholarships from Lincoln Tech which is the college I’ll be attending,” said Harrell. “They had an acceptance test there where 1,200 kids took it and I was in the top 20. I got an $8,000 scholarship for that. If it wasn’t for the SCILL Center, I probably wouldn’t have done as well on the test.”
Adam Fishbaugh is another graduate from Plymouth.
“Actually, I’m signed up to go to Ivy Tech in Valparaiso for natural gas technology which would get me into NIPSCO natural gas,” said Fishbaugh. “We had dual credits here at the SCILL Center and they’ll apply to my training there in the electric part of it and some other items on the mechanical side of it.”
Finally Shauntae Stiles of Culver is a first year student in the Automotive Certification Program. She explains why she took the class.
“I just decided that I didn’t want to have to depend on a man all my life,” replied Stiles after asked why she enrolled in the class. “I wanted to be able to fix things myself. In the first year here, I learned how to tear apart an engine and I really enjoyed learning how to do it on my own. Yesterday, we had my car in the shop and I helped to replace the spark plugs.”
This is the 11th year for the Automotive Certification Program at the SCILL Center. Since that time, 530 students have gone through the course and Instructors Mark Anderson and Rod Dawson say if the students don’t go on for further training that they can go out and get a good paying job.
The Starke County Economic Development Foundation owns the building and Ancilla College manages the program. Knox is the host school and students from Knox,
North Judson-San Pierre, Culver, John Glenn, Plymouth, LaVille, Triton, and Oregon Davis are eligible to attend. If you have a student who is not sure what they want to do, check to see how they can be enrolled in the Automotive Certification Program at the SCILL Center. If they are going on to further their education, they can walk out of this program with as much as 12 college credits.
