TEMPLE, Texas — Temple High School welding student Fidel Bocanegra won first place at the Texas High School Welding Series in Huntsville last weekend. Bocanegra also earned more than $16,000 in scholarships to go along with his first-place finish.
Bocanegra is a junior in the welding program in Temple High School’s Career and Technical Education Department. He won first place in the horizontal groove welding event, known as the 2g weld. Bocanegra was one of 100 students competing in the event during the contest held at Huntsville High School. In addition to winning first place in his category, he also earned $16,500 in college scholarships
“It is a wonderful opportunity for them to be able to go and compete,” said Jake Lingo, welding instructor at Temple High School. “Competing at this level is very similar to going out and doing a weld test to get a job. This gives the students a chance to take what they’ve learned here and go into a new environment with new machines against people they don’t know and have to perform. Fidel went and knocked it out of the park.”
Bocanegra also earned an American Welding Society certification during the competition. He says he was expecting to come out of the weekend with at least that certification and the real-world type of experience described by his teacher. But the scholarship money that comes with his first-place title may end up being life-changing for him.
“I was surprised when I won,” Bocanegra said. “I was expecting to get certified, but I wasn’t expecting to get first place. I was planning to go straight to work after graduation, but now I think I can put that scholarship money toward going farther in my education to help me do even more in the field.”
Bocanegra has also qualified to compete in an underwater welding competition this summer. He will have a chance to put on a dive setup, go underwater and compete against other first-place winners. First place in that competition also earns a full college scholarship.