Once again, HCTC students and staff are letting their skills and talents shine. Only this time, that light is reaching out of Hancock County, past the state of Maine – and shining on the national stage.
At the 2026 SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference (NLSC), HCTC will be the first ever team from Maine to compete in the Models of Excellence program; chosen as one of only 24 schools across the nation for this honor, and one of just eight champions recognized in the Personal Skills component of the SkillsUSA Framework.
“To make it to this level is very hard and very stringent. From us, we're just very glad that finally, not only a team in Maine got chosen, but I'm very glad that this school got chosen because of the work they've done,” says SkillsUSA Maine Executive Director Hal Casey. “They're one of the few schools that have been plugging at it every year, trying to get better and trying to figure out what they need to do to make it to that level – and it sounds like they finally cracked that code.”
“I think my jaw might have hit the floor, honestly, just because it's never happened. We felt that we’ve put our best foot forward,” says HCTC Director Bill Tracy. “To actually be in a spot where you’re recognized at the state level, and to be able to compete at the national level – that’s pretty impressive and very exciting.”
HCTC will have two Business Leadership and Hospitality students representing the chapter at NLSC for the Models of Excellence program - senior Abigail Billings and junior Annabri Ransom.
“It was just really exciting to learn about and to think about that – we're going to nationals. It's just a great opportunity for us to go,” Ransom says. “It just seems kind of insane. It's really exciting to be the first one to represent Maine as our home state and also represent HCTC.”
“It's kind of a shock to me because I didn't even know that it was actually an option,” Billings says. “It’s just an honor to be able to be the one who started the idea, and was mainly involved with it, and just to have this opportunity."
Their project was a creative one - an HCTC-themed “giving tree” for the "Homegrown Holiday Fair" held at Sumner Memorial High School in November. Their tree was a variation of a traditional Festival of Trees, where organizations donate gift-laden trees or wreaths to be raffled off to the community. For this project, HCTC students didn't just decorate a tree; they coordinated with every single program at the technical center to create unique, high-quality holiday raffle baskets.
“Every one of our programs put something together to sponsor that tree,” Tracy says. “And the event is a Sumner based event, but for us to be able to come together and have that be a piece of it and part of our competition, I think was pretty cool to have that many programs involved.”
All of the collaboration – between getting each HCTC program involved, receiving permissions, collecting the gifts and donations from each program, just to name a few – was handled by Billings, who was excited to step into the professional role for this project. That school-wide organization is simply a reflection of the culture that breathes inside of the HCTC walls - hard work, partnership, and dedication.
“I know people put a lot of hard work into it and put a lot of effort into this, so their effort did pay off,” Ransom says. “HCTC is such a good school and everyone works so hard here.”
“It's amazing so I mean we've had a push to really expand what we're offering here – certainly by program we've always had a ton of kids involved, and our instructors are locked in, but our advisors have really taken on the challenge of saying how can we make this more school-wide,” Tracy says. “You can compete in your programs [at SkillsUSA] and put forward the best possible students or you can compete in your programs for the best possible students and do it in conjunction with other programs, do it in conjunction as an entire school. And I think that's the thing that for us, it's a culture here at HCTC that I was fortunate enough to step into and fully embrace.”
Being the first school from Maine to attend, our HCTC Chapter is approaching this with bright eyes and clear hearts, and embracing their smaller role in what could be a “David vs. Goliath” story.
“When you look at it in the past, it's always been those bigger states with a lot of the schools and everything, more resources, more resources and everything else making it. So for us in Maine, when you look at how CTE is funded and then how the chapters are funded, for them to be able to compete at that level, it’s completely two different things,” Casey says. “It's a big David and Goliath story.”
“That's really exciting to be the underdog a little bit,” Tracy says.
But if it’s one thing Team David has in their corner – the wonderful, passionate, and dedicated staff at HCTC.
“We are a skills school. When we start prepping, and we start prepping in October, getting our competitions ready. Huge kudos to our students for being willing to take on these extra challenges. But it comes down to the staff,” Tracy says. “They are super passionate about it. They understand what it can mean for students. But also they themselves really, really work with our students to put their best foot forward. And to me – what better thing is there when you have adults as mentors, teachers, putting their best foot forward so our students can compete well, and really be prepared – because there's just so many positive impacts of it.”
The 2026 SkillsUSA NLSC will be held in Atlanta, Georgia during the first week of June – and we cannot wait to see what our entire chapter can do against the best in the nation! They will join the rest of our SkillsUSA Nationals participants – but their week looks much different, and we are so excited to follow along with them on their journey!