Paris Gibson Learning Center Students Win State Competition and Opportunity to Compete Against 50 Other Schools in 2009 Ford/AAA Student Auto Skills National Finals in Michigan June 14

Helena, Mont. 5/7/09 – Today at 10 a.m., nine high schools from across Montana met at the University of Montana, Helena College of Technology to face off in the Ford/AAA Student Auto Skills Competition. Each two-student team raced the clock to correctly identify and fix intentionally installed “bugs” on identical 2009 Ford Focus vehicles.

Teammates Kelsey Petrini and Anthony Stinger, of Paris Gibson Learning Center, won the title as Montana’s best student auto technicians by correctly diagnosing and repairing 10 out of 10 “bugs.” They received several valuable prizes including scholarships from the Universal Technical Institute and University of Montana, Helena College of Technology.

Petrini and Stinger will represent Montana at the National Finals in Dearborn, Mich. on June 14-16, 2009. They worked with their instructor, Joe Wilkins, throughout the year to prepare for the state competition and will continue to train until the national finals in June.

The Bozeman High School team of Clint Parsch and Austin King, along with instructor Jess Stovall, finished second. The Great Falls High School team of Chase Simonson and Philip Magart, along with instructor Brad Warren, placed third.

“With so many motorists hanging onto their vehicles longer in this economic climate, it really underscores the need for skilled automotive technicians in this country,” said Joe Beatty, AAA Automotive Service Manager. “This competition rewards aspiring automotive technicians and, we hope, inspires them to get the best training possible so that they can embark on promising careers within the automotive repair industry, and possibly with AAA or Ford.”

This is the 60th anniversary of Ford/AAA Student Auto Skills, a nationwide automotive technology competition that offers nearly $10 million in scholarships and prizes to high school juniors and seniors interested in pursuing careers as automotive service technicians. More than 9,700 students from across the nation compete for the chance to represent their school and state as part of a two-person team in the National Finals in Dearborn, Mich. Ford and AAA are dedicated to the competition as part of their commitment to the future of automotive service in America.

AAA MountainWest Club is dedicated to providing its over 160,000 members in Alaska, Montana and Wyoming with travel, insurance, financial and auto-related services.  A fully taxpaying, not-for-profit corporation, AAA MountainWest, Inc. works for the improvement of motoring and traveling conditions and is a leader for travel, civic and safety issues. AAA can be visited on the Internet at www.AAA.com.  To have up-to-date news and safety information from AAA delivered right to your desktop, sign-up for the new RSS Feed at http://aca.aaa.com/exts/email/?club=066#rss

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