Ag ed looks to expand welding program

BONNERS FERRY — Joe Stockdale struck his first arc in the Bonners Ferry High School shop close to 30 years ago.

He returned to BFHS this year to teach welding two days a week, taking time out of his multi-faceted career in ironwork to give agricultural education students real world experience and skills in the field of welding.

FFA and welding students joined ag ed teacher and FFA advisor Julie Smith at the Feb. 13 school board meeting to ask the school board to expand Stockdale’s contract to full time next year.

“Because FFA is a component of the ag ed curriculum, it is nearly impossible to fulfill all the duties required of an ag ed instructor when instructing over 100 students,” she told the board in a letter.

“Mr. Stockdale brings to the program expertise not found in other ag programs across the state,” she said.

“Not only is he an expert, he also loves his students and cares about their well-being. He has donated countless hours this year to help our kids become excellent welders. Some will be able to walk out the door upon graduating making more than a first year teacher using the skills they are learning under his guidance.”

By allowing Stockdale to take over the welding classes, Smith would have the opportunity to expand FFA courses and other electives in the ag field.

BFHS students were on hand to help urge the board to consider expanding ag ed options at the high school. Mary Fioravanti wrote a letter to the board, saying she would like to stay in FFA without taking welding, but that there were no other ag class options than welding.

“I understand that this school has the potential to offer so much to the students, and I also know many students would love the opportunity to take more ag-related classes,” she said. “My suggestions would be a greenhouse class, an outdoor survival training class, a horticulture class, an aquaculture class or a culinary arts class.”

Stockdale joined the Navy after graduating from BFHS and worked as a Seabee (or CB, for construction battalion), learning the steelworking trade at a technical school in California before retiring from the service in 1992.

After working a variety of industry jobs, he started his own business, Stockdale Steel, which he still runs. He built a number of wood pellet plants with his crews, including the Lignetics plant in Sandpoint, one in Hauser Lake, and others in Ohio, Virginia and Utah.

Stockdale oversaw $6 to $8 million projects and employed as many as 22 people on his crews over the years. More recently, he spent time working on the North Slope in Alaska and will have been home in Bonners Ferry two years this April.

Here at home, Stockdale is a one-man show at Stockdale Steel, creating ornamental steel items like fencing, handrails and gates. He works as a millwright at the Alta mill on weekends and also contracts with Schweitzer to do fabrication and repair.

“The welding industry has always treated me very well,” he says. “This is my way of paying it back. I’d like to pass on this knowledge.”

Stockdale’s contract is for two hours a day, two days a week, but he is usually at the school for more than six hours, and often comes in a third day a week or more.

He volunteers his time because of the results he is seeing from kids hungry for the skills he can help them learn.

“We’ve got some real talent in here,” he says, looking out over the advanced welding class, “I just needed to pull it out of them. This is a great job, not for the money but because of the results.”

When Stockdale walked into the BFHS ag shop, he started looking at making changes as the curriculum was out of date.

In addition to industry-standard welding training in oxyacetylene, stick welding, Mig and Tig welding and aluminum welding in all positions, he began certifying students at American Welding Society (AWS) standards. Having these certifications can land a student a welding job the minute they walk out the door.

He also dusted off the $25,000 machine in the corner that no one knew how to use —- a computer numerical control plasma cutter that can take computer-aided drafting (CAD) designs and cut them from steel stock. He began teaching students about fabrication and automation, and is also helping students earn certifications on the plasma cutter.

“Contractors need operators for the plasma table right now,” Stockdale says. “A report from the Lincoln Welding Company and the AWS said that over the next five years we will need 200,000 welders in the US alone, that’s not even including the overseas demand.”

One of the things the students like most about the program is the ability to choose their own projects.

The advanced welding class has busy students working on a dozen projects, from repairing trailers to fabricating cattle chutes for the fairgrounds. The class built a full snowplow mount on a pickup this winter and also did repair work on a chipper. Students practice welds all around the shop and others are working on designing a bicycle ramp. The shop is a mess of controlled chaos.

“The shop is always a mess,” Stockdale said. “I always say that it takes a mess to create a masterpiece.”

Students have to take a written safety exam before they are allowed to use the tools in the shop, and pass it with a 100 percent. Other than that, all the other tests are hands-on, nine position and application welding tests the first semester and seven the second.

The class is popular — some students have dropped other electives to so they can take the class for two hours a day.

If the school board is able to come up with the funding to hire Stockdale full time, there are more changes he would like to make.

The class already cross-collaborates with the drafting class to come up with designs, and Stockdale would like to expand these collaborations. He wants to mix steel and wood, fabricating items like furniture in association with woodshop classes. Teaming up with the robotics team would also expand his students’ project possibilities, using drafting, fabrication, automation and programming skills across classes. He also wants to move the class from the cramped space at the high school back to the larger space at the middle school. Right now, larger projects have to be done in the parking lot outside the welding shop.

“That works well until it starts raining,” he said.

Stockdale says many of his students are natural welders, and he will wait until they ask him questions before coaching them.

“Problem solving is a huge part of this course,” he said. “I’m really pleased with the results. It takes a lot of work to stay ahead of these kids.”

For some students, welding class is the high point of their day. With long hair and lip piercings, Brandon Standley is not your typical ag class student.

“This is a good release,” he says, as he prepares to practice with the Tig welder “My other classes are hell.”

“He’s a good welder,” Stockdale said. “I’m going to make him awesome.”

“I started this job with the preconception that kids today would be youth of entitlement with a dwindling work ethic,” Stockdale said. “That is the farthest thing from the truth. These are good, hard-working country kids. The more I challenge them, the more they deliver. They’re constantly raising the bar — I don’t even have to.”