DACC’s Kelly takes the road less traveled

Ali Kelly

Story and photo by

LIZ ROBERTSON

Senior Ali Kelly has switched gears from being in music and the arts ear­lier in her high school career to a totally dif­fer­ent path — she is now in the weld­ing pro­gram at the Delaware Area Career Center.

And her future promises to take yet another direc­tion; Ali has decided after grad­u­a­tion to attend the Motor­cy­cle Mechan­ics Insti­tute, part of Uni­ver­sal Tech­ni­cal Insti­tute, in Phoenix. Orig­i­nally, she was inter­ested in marine mechan­ics (“I’ve always liked the sea.”), then engi­neer­ing, fol­lowed by art school.

“Every three months it would change,” Ali said.

Then a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from UTI vis­ited, and the rest, as they say, is history.

“My par­ents were skep­ti­cal at first,” she said of her deci­sion to pur­sue a career work­ing with motorcycles. 

Ali said when she has com­pleted the course­work, she will be able to go to any Harley David­son shop.

“I can’t wait. Harleys will always break, so I will always have a job,” she said. 

Ali also has the option of attend­ing the South Dakota School of Mines and Tech­nol­ogy where she has a schol­ar­ship through her tribe, the Sicangu Lakota Oyate, or Rose­bud tribe, from the same area where her mother comes from, so she may end up in South Dakota.

As one of three girls, she was the one who always helped her father with his projects. She played with the boys grow­ing up, but was not a tomboy.

“I still liked the princesses,” she said.

Ali said the piv­otal point in her career deci­sion was the fail­ure of the Big Wal­nut levy and the result­ing cuts to the district’s music arts programs. 

“My life was gone,” she said of her reac­tion at the time. 

But a visit to the career cen­ter opened other doors and had her con­tem­plat­ing either zoo school or welding.

“I’m more hands on” she said. So with her art teacher and a coun­selor encour­ag­ing her, Ali chose welding.

Leah Peck is the art teacher at Big Wal­nut High School. She said, “Ali is a very tal­ented stu­dent with an adven­tur­ous spirit. She is also indus­tri­ous and inno­v­a­tive and not afraid to take the road less trav­eled with regard to pur­su­ing her inter­ests. I have no doubt she will be suc­cess­ful in all of her future endeavors.”

Being a girl in the DACC weld­ing pro­gram, Ali said she does not feel like a minority.

“The guys do not make me feel like it,” she said, admit­ting her father was wor­ried. “The guys in the class are fine with it.”

Spend­ing time with Ali and mak­ing jokes, “they mess with me like I’m one of the guys.”

Though she did find it odd that at USA National, “not a lot of the reps would talk to me, even though I scored 92 on vir­tual welding.”

Jim Beck was one of Ali’s Skill­sUSA advi­sors last year when she com­peted in the Chap­ter Dis­play com­pe­ti­tion with two other DACC North stu­dents. He said Ali and the team received first place hon­ors at the Ohio com­pe­ti­tion, then cap­tured 10th place rep­re­sent­ing Ohio at the Skill­sUSA National Com­pe­ti­tion in Kansas City, with Ali as the spokesper­son for the team.

“Ali is a dri­ven, cre­ative and hard work­ing per­son. She expects per­fec­tion from her­self at all times, thus putting an enor­mous amount of pres­sure on her­self. Ali con­tributes pos­i­tively to DACC in any way that she can, she is a won­der­ful and con­sci­en­tious ambas­sador for DACC,” Beck said, adding, “You have cho­sen an excel­lent stu­dent to be a Gazette Teen of the Week.”

“Ali is an out­stand­ing young woman whom I have had the priv­i­lege to have as a stu­dent. Alli­son has a pas­sion for art and her know­ing that weld­ing is a tool that will help her fur­ther her life dream of being an artist will serve her well,” said Scott Laslo.

“It is no sur­prise that Ali has been selected as Teen of the Week. Ali truly is excep­tional and is deserv­ing of this award. Her abil­ity to present her­self pro­fes­sion­ally in any sit­u­a­tion is one of many attrib­utes that she brings to any sit­u­a­tion or meet­ing. Ali serves as a role model for females in non-traditional occu­pa­tions. She exem­pli­fies the skills and traits needed by today’s worker regard­less of gen­der and any employer will be best served when they employ her tal­ents. Ali adds value to any group, class, orga­ni­za­tion etc. that she takes part in. Her lead­er­ship qual­i­ties are also a direct reflec­tion of the instruc­tion she is being given at the Delaware Area Career Cen­ter,” he said.

Ali said she con­sid­ered sculp­ture at one point, but later decided “I just wanted to weld.”

For her senior project though, she will work on a piece that will incor­po­rate dif­fer­ent tex­tures, col­ors and designs on sheet metal.

“Weld­ing on its own is an art form,” Ali said.

Ali works for an elderly man in the com­mu­nity – clean­ing his house, work­ing out­side his home and help­ing with his meals.

Ali keeps busy with other activ­i­ties, too. She still par­tic­i­pates in music at Big Wal­nut, is a stu­dent ambas­sador and blogs for the Career Cen­ter. She also vol­un­teered at a student-run lead­er­ship con­fer­ence at Hyatts Mid­dle School that helped the younger stu­dents get ahead.

With less school work in the pic­ture for the remain­der of the school year, Ali said she may soon take on another vol­un­teer opportunity.

“I will have more time,” she said, adding that she would like to get out into the com­mu­nity more with what lit­tle time she has left before leav­ing for school.

Liv­ing here since kinder­garten, she said she has always wanted to live out of state and loves trav­el­ing. Her biggest dream is to travel around the world.

Yet as the months pass, the real­ity of leav­ing is begin­ning to sink in.

“Oh my gosh. The real world is com­ing and I will not have my dad,” she said.

With the future on her doorstep, she has some sound words of advice for others.

“Hon­estly, do every­thing you are offered,” she said. “I was lazy my sopho­more year so I missed out. Don’t lose your con­nec­tions. If you want to do it, do it.”

Ali is the daugh­ter of David and Sue Kelly of Sunbury.

Posted by Liz Robertson on Dec 30 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.