BOERNE, Texas — On Tuesday, the longest-serving governor of Texas visited the Hill Country and received an emotional surprise.
Former Gov. Rick Perry thought he was attending a community event in Boerne. Instead, Samuel V. Champion High School students presented Perry with a 1992 Chevy pickup truck.
It belonged to his late father, Joseph Perry, who was a World War II veteran.
“It’s really emotional,” said Perry. “This would have given him an amazingly big smile. My bet is he is up in heaven looking down right now.”
In September, Perry asked the welding technology class to sandblast the truck’s headache rack.
“That’s the third pickup truck it's been on,” said Perry. “I built that [rack] in 1978 right after I got home from the Air Force. I built it using the skills I learned as a boy in vocational education in a Paint Creek rural high school. That welding skill continued to be something that I used on a weekly basis when I was farming.”
Students spent more than 1,500 hours rebuilding the entire truck, according to their welding instructor Mr. Dorman Vick.
“We were here after school hours,” said recent graduate Camden Graves.
“[Perry] was expecting us to just do the headache rack and front bumper,” added graduate Jack Burkhart. “But we completely took down the truck, bare frame and everything.”
“It was really special to work on something like this,” said graduate Eli Christian. “Especially for someone who wants to go into politics like myself, it was pretty cool to be shaking the governor’s hand again. We all put our blood, sweat and tears into it. To see it all pay off with this many people, it’s truly special.”
The Chevy may look and sound like it's brand new, but it still has a lot of its original character. Perry’s signature can still be found on the frame and a layer of red dirt from Paint Creek, Texas, coats the seats.
Rebuilding Perry’s truck was just one of several big projects welding students worked on last year. In 2023, they also unveiled a new sign at Boerne Cemetery.
The Champion High School program not only has contracts with the city and local businesses, but welding students may also be the only high schoolers in the country to work on federal contracts.
“It’s 20 years of students that are behind the movement that made us get to where we are right now,” said Mr. Vick. “I believe tonight you saw the rocket take off and leave planet earth for the vocational trade movement.”
Perry is hoping Boerne ISD inspires other districts to embrace technical training.
“This is an example of what you can have in your school,” said Perry. “These are young men and women who are not only going to make a good living, they are going to feel good about what they are doing.
"This program is literally on fire. Young people who are like, 'You know what? I’m not really sure college is for me,' this may be what is for them. If it is, their future can be incredibly bright and they won't have a big college debt. They can get out of high school and make $100,000 to $125,000 a year welding.”