Date of Event: 03/22/2025
Location: New Industries, LLC; 6032 Railroad Avenue; Morgan City, Louisiana
Number of Attendees: 70
Presenter/Notable Guest(s): Anthony Blakeney – District 9 Director, awarded a $1,000 Scholarship to the competition winner.
Event Summary: The AWS Morgan City Section was a co-sponsor of the 2nd annual St. Mary Parish Welding Competition for area high schools. There were five high schools that had welding teams competing in SMAW and FCAW welding.
The event was started in 2025 by New Industries and was the sole sponsor and was seen as a great success. For 2025, others sponsors joined in, including AWS Morgan City Section, Bayou Testers & X-Ray, Conrad Shipyard, Hudson Services Inc., Lincoln Electric, New Industries / HonIron and St. Mary Parish School Board.
Winners were:
SMAW-
1st place – Dallas Bass – Sophomore – Patterson
2nd place – Bryan Cerritos – Junior – Morgan City
3rd place – Jake Chadwick – Junior – Patterson
FCAW-
1st place – Gage Begley – Senior – Morgan City
2nd place – Michael Turner – Senior – Morgan City
3rd place – Warren Jennings – Junior – Morgan City
Overall-
Kevin Jordan – Senior – Patterson
The winning school, Morgan City High School, had the honor of taking the trophy home until the next competition in 2026.
Each high school had their principals and other administors and welding instructors present and supporting their teams.
Facility tours with welding and equipment demonstrations were hosted by New Industries where visitors were allowed to try their hand at welding with stick, flux core and TIG processes.
