Students create training tool

SIKESTON - A joint effort by the Sikeston Career and Technology Center's drafting, building trades and graphic arts classes has produced what prison officials say will be a valuable training tool: a scale model of the Southeast Correctional Center in Charleston.

"They put a lot of hard work into making this for us, and it's really good to see that we can get out and work together with the community to do things like this," said Keith Bass, SECC's safety manager.

The project began in December when Bass contacted SCTC drafting instructor Clay Hunter to see if his class would be interested in building such a model.

Being just the sort of thing SCTC instructors are looking for, the class got permission from SCTC Director Laura Hendley and went to work.

"This project gives the students a real-world experience in the architectural field," Hunter said. "Each of these projects teaches the students time management, team work and how to handle deadlines as well as the basic skills in each area of study."

Prison officials supplied the prison's engineering and architectural drawings for the class to work from.

The class then expanded the plans' quarter-inch-to-one-foot scale to a one-inch-to-80-feet scale so the model would fill a three-by-five foot plywood base. "We had to rescale everything," said Hunter.

To produce the model's buildings, Hunter brought in building trades instructor Steve Hamra and his class to help with the project.

Once the scaling was complete for the prison grounds and structures, the building trades class routed the model's base and cut out buildings.

To get signs printed, the drafting class next enlisted the help of the graphic arts class.

With work being completed on the project during both the morning and afternoon three-hour class sessions, the project was completed over a period of six weeks, according to Hunter.

Hunter said two seniors in particular, Jarrod Staggs and Paul Gammons, served as leaders for the project. "They coordinated everything and did the majority of the rescale work if not all of it."

Also contributing to the project were seniors Anthony Deuster, Shawn Stevens, Sean Watson and juniors Kyle Howard, T.J. Bechel, Jon Bloomer, Scott Kleusner, Matt Dockins, Tyler Crow and Michael Cochran.

The model will be entered in the SkillsUSA-VICA state competition scheduled for April 24-26 in Warrensburg, Hunter said.

As the competition's theme will be "Step Up to Success," the display will include a bulletin board along with the model itself. "We'll show the individual steps it took to make this model," Hunter said.

SCTC's scale model houses with detailed structural components have twice won second-place honors at past state VICA conventions, Hunter said, but whether the prison model places at the SkillsUSA-VICA competition or not, the project is already a winner due to the response from prison officials.

"They like the job that we did so much, they've asked us to do another model just like the one we finished," Hunter said.

The second model will be placed in SECC's emergency response unit trailer. "They wanted one to go in there full time," he explained. "It's a very important training tool."

Bass said the models will be used not only for training fire and disaster drills, but also to help planning for emergencies involving outside emergency agencies and for tracking units during an actual emergency.

Production on the second scale model will begin in September, Hunter said.