A female Morinville Community High School student has taken gold in a national cabinet making competition.
Skills Canada puts on skilled trades and technology competitions all across the country. Grade 12 student Kirsten Whitfield has been dominating these events all year.
Whitfield competed in the largest category and placed first out of 39 competitors.
"[She is an] excellent student, really good attention to detail, dedicated. All of those qualities you look for in a great student," said Kyle Coxen, the construction and fabrication teacher at Morinville Community High School.
Whitfield said that she spent an average of 4 to 5 hours in the school's shop every day to make sure she was confident in her skills.
"I felt pretty good. I practised a lot, so I felt really prepared for it," explained Kirsten Whitfield.
Historically, these competitions have been won by male students.
"There are more women that have started to do this stuff, and it just shows that women can do it just as well as men can," added Whitfield.
Also, at Morinville Community High School, most of the seats in shop classes are filled by male students.
"On average, the female population in my room is about 5 to 10 per cent in each class. So that's about 3 or 4 girls in every class out of about 25 boys," said Coxen.
Whitfield just recently got a job with Gem Cabinets and hopes to start apprenticing with them.