Thursday, June 17, 2021
MERIDIANSOURCE.CA
VOLUME 3 I ISSUE 51
Skye’s the limit for Skills teens GEOFF LEE
WRITER
.................................. Holy Rosary High School is celebrating a golden moment in national Skills Canada competition. The milestone kicked in Tuesday night after school hours in the communication’s media lab. That’s where Grade 12 students Sierrah Bennett and Mackenzie DeCrescenzo and their teacher, Skye Ferguson, learned they had won the gold medal while watching the award ceremony live streamed from Quebec City. “I was shocked. Sierrah got up and hugged me. I couldn’t even move. I was just stunned,” said DeCrescenzo during a media event at the school Wednesday morning. Bennett notes she was equally spellbound upon hearing the news. “I went and I slammed both of my hands on my lap and I jumped up and I started cheering and I’m like ‘let’s go!’” she said. The gold medal was the school’s first-
ever win and first-ever win for video production, taught by Ferguson, who was super pumped but not surprised when the award was announced. “We set this goal for them when they were in Grade 10. I was very proud; I knew they could do it. It was great to see it come to life,” she said. The students’ gold at nationals, follows gold medals at the regionals and provincials in 2021. The best friends have amassed a total of 11 gold medals in individual and team competitions in three years. DeCrescenzo is the on-camera talent while Bennett masters all the filming and editing. At the virtual nationals on May 26, they were tasked with planning, filming and editing a video that explained five ways the education system h as c hang ed in C anada since the COVID-19 outbreak. “So we really want to make the video fun and engaging,” said DeCrescenzo.
“We thought why not clone myself and give each of the five points their own personality.” The end result is a 1:28 minute video telling the story of the impact of COVID with the lack of extracurriculars, limited motivation, technological advancements, access to resources and physical isolation. “We actually did get word from one of the judges they got a perfect score—the first perfect score at the nationals,” said Ferguson. “It’s a great accomplish to have in my teaching.” The video can be viewed at https://youtu. be/WZnG45H3-W0. The national gold medal is a bit of bittersweet victory for the two friends who will no longer compete together as high school students. “As happy as I am to win this national competition, it’s also sort of sad it’s all come to an end; at least we can say we did it together,” said DeCrescenzo. The grads will attend a one-year program in
Geoff Lee Meridian Source
Holy Rosary High School students Sierrah Bennett and Mackenzie DeCrescenzo flank the school’s media teacher, Skye Ferguson on Wednesday morning as they celebrated their Nationals Skills competition gold medal.
film production at the Vancouver Film School this fall. “My ultimate goal is to be a director or a producer,” she said. Bennett says Skills Canada has been such a great journey for her over the years. “I’ve put in a lot of
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hard work and dedication into this competition and it’s just so rewarding to see this hard work pay off,” she said. Bennett plans to pursue post-secondary education this fall and become a teacher. “Ideally, I would love
to teach video production and photography because that is my passion. That’s my true calling,” she said. “I would love to share my talent with other people and have other people discover their talent and passion through that.”