Unaka High School and Career Technical Education (CTE) student Lyndsi Grindstaff lands a spot in the 2019 mikeroweWORKS Foundation Travel Scholarship, which is an all expenses paid trip to Louisville so she can take part in the SkillsUSA’s National Leadership and Skills Conference. The award also pays for the registration fee for the National competition as well.

To go to the National conference, Lyndsi had to first win the state SkillsUSA competition in Chattanooga. She clinched this by winning first place in auto body damage appraisal.

The mikeroweWORKS Foundation Travel Scholarship is its ninth year. According to its website the “mikeroweWORKS Foundation has offered travel scholarships to SkillsUSA members who compete and place first in their state’s SkillsUSA Championships but face a financial challenge in going on to the national event.”

The mikeroweWORKS Foundation is named after Michael Rowe, who is an American actor, television host and narrator. He also is widely known for his work on the Discovery Channel series Dirty Jobs, and recently, CNN’s Somebody’s Gotta Do It.

Lyndsi, who also currently works “at just everything” at Quik Cleaners said her skill set rests in estimating body damage costs done to vehicles that are usually involved in crashes.

She credits her selection primarily to her CTE teacher Scotty Johnson. “He talked to me quite a bit about it. He talked me into it…once I got into it I started liking it,” Lyndsi said. “I love competing for stuff, so that helped me out a lot.”

Lyndsi says that winning the National competition would help her in her career goal of working as estimator in a body shop. Potential employers would be able to see that she won against people from 50 other states for the job she is seeking. She prefers working in a body shop to becoming an insurance adjustor or another field that requires the skill set she is pursuing.

Lyndsi said applying for the scholarship required both her and Johnson to write a financial need paper and other paperwork, after which she concentrated on other things.

She said she did not even know that she had won until lots of people started calling her, including her proud teacher. “I was shocked and surprised,” she said.

There is no doubt the competition is going to be tough, but since Lyndsi likes to compete, she may just clinch the win.

When asked what she would say to Mike Rowe if she got to meet him, Lyndsi said, “I would thank him for making awards available that make it easier for people like me to enter programs that I like and want to do.”