On-Site Welding Begins for Clay County High School

Commuting for vocational training is a thing of the past for Clay County High School students.

This program stems from $1 million dollars of funding through Governor Bill Lee’s Governor’s Investment in Vocational Education program. After more than a year of planning, welding instructor Marshall Burch has come in to provide students with career path after high school.

“Not every kid is made to go to college, some kids they just have no desire to go to college for four years and a vocational program is a much shorter program, it’s more hands on,” Burch said.

Currently 10 to 15 students are using the new center. Before this on-site training was available, students were travelling to the Tennessee College of Applied Technology in Livingston.

Marshall Burch is a native of Clay County and said he is thankful for the chance to come home.

“It was a big opportunity for me to be able to teach students of Clay County and come back to my home school and help out,” Burch said.

Students using the welding center can spend anywhere from 1 hour to 3 hours training their skills.

“I would like to do some good projects for them and everything that they can say that they worked on,” Burch said.

There are not any projects planned at the moment while the welding center tries to get rolling in its first year on-site, Burch said.