Lehigh Career & Technical Institute students won 16 gold medals and nearly $82,000 in scholarships Jan. 31 at the SkillsUSA District 11 Championships.

LCTI’s students also earned 23 silver and 15 bronze medals for a grand total of 54 medals.

Held annually at the Agri-Plex Expo Center, the regional event pits LCTI students against peers from Bethlehem Area Vocational-Technical School, Career Institute of Technology, Monroe Career & Technical Institute and Upper Bucks County Technical School in more than 50 contests of skill ranging from automotive service technology to web design.

All of the gold-medal winners qualified to compete at the next level of competition. In most cases, that’s this spring’s SkillsUSA Pennsylvania Leadership and Skill Championships. The statewide event is scheduled for April 17-20 at Hershey Lodge and Conference Center.

After a long day of competition, the roughly 400 competitors headed to Parkland High School for an evening awards ceremony celebrating their accomplishments. In addition to medals, top finishers in 11 categories were presented with thousands of dollars in scholarships and prizes provided by Automotive Training Center, Northampton Community College and the D’Olimpio Memorial Fund.

LCTI’s medal winners and scholarship recipients from Whitehall High School are:

Third place, carpentry - Logan Fawcett, carpentry

First place, criminal justice, and $1,000 scholarship to Northampton Community College - Fredrid Tirado Cardona, criminal justice

Second place, architectural drafting - Jose Morales, drafting/computer-assisted drafting

Third place, health knowledge bowl - Gabrielle Cooper, health occupations

Second place, HVACR - Thomas Jackowski, heating/air conditioning and refrigeration

First place, automated manufacturing - Talen Getchell, precision machine tool technology

First place, graphic communications - Jeremy Salabsky, print technology/graphic imaging

Third place, graphic communications - Jaron Crosson, print technology/graphic imaging

Second place, web design - Nicholas Gerancher, web design/web programming