To Live Up to a Legacy, They Had Two Days to Build a House

New York Times

17-07-2025

The plumber, the mason, the electrician and the carpenter arrived a full hour early to collect their blueprints. They had two days in June to build an eight-foot by 10-foot tiny home inside the convention center in downtown Atlanta. They knew little else about their assignment, but they were anxious to get started.
And they were ready to win.
The four-person crew, all students at Belton High School in Belton, Texas, were defending the school's title as the reigning national champions of mock tiny home construction. Every year, around 6,700 students participate in roughly 115 trade contests like auto mechanics, baking, cosmetology and robotics at the SkillsUSA Championships.
In Belton, a town of open fields and highways halfway between Waco and Austin, the prize for home construction could make the students stars. The teens could get a segment on the local television station, a spread in the front of the yearbook, a giant banner strung up in the high school wood shop and attention from local and national homebuilders who scout their school and the convention for talent.
Belton High was the winningest in the 23-year history of the national TeamWorks contest, taking the top prize three times, including last year. But those boys had graduated and the new crew had never competed at this level.
And yet, the new team — the plumber Joseph Fuentes, the mason Bryson Necessary, the electrician Erik Schiller and the carpenter Jack Clark — knew that winning was expected. They could sense it from their coach when he said things like, 'You've got to be on your A game — like a boxer.' Or by the fact that their school's principal was going to wake up at 4 a.m. and fly 1,000 miles to see them compete.
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