FREEDOM, Wis. — Work on a white Jeep has been going on for a few years.

A lot of hands have touched it. The Jeep has become part of the high school experience for Freedom High School students.

What You Need To Know

  • Freedom High School automotive and collision instructor Jay Abitz says his classes are as much about experiences as learning hard skills

  • High School teachers in Freedom and Seymour were each awarded $50,000 by Harbor Freight Tools for their work in the classroom

  • Some analysts expect a shortage of nearly three million trades workers nationwide by 2028

That's the way Freedom High School automotive and collision instructor Jay Abitz intended it to be. 

“The point of this is to go through all of the experience of building a car from the ground up,” he said. “Our students do absolutely everything from top to bottom, bumper to bumper.”

The key word for Abitz is “experience.”

“For me, life is all about the experience,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what they do or learn on any given day, it’s when they look back at high school, what did they enjoy? What did they remember? Things like this are memorable.”

Abitz and Staci Sievert — an industrial technology instructor at Seymour Community High School — were both presented with $50,000 checks Thursday by Harbor Freight Tools for their work in classrooms focused on teaching skilled trades. They’re among 18 teachers being recognized nationally.

Thirty five thousand dollars is earmarked for the school’s program. Abitz said he plans to use that money to purchase new equipment for the program,  including a new scan tool and a tire changer and wheel balancer.

Shortly after the presentation, senior Alex Seiter was dying pieces of the Jeep’s interior in the school’s paint booth.

He said Abitz is easy to connect with.

“He’s young at heart,” Seiter said. “He keeps up with us and he’s always pushing us to do better work

.”Abitz knows the job. His dad, Bob, taught it for years at Freedom High School before Jay landed the position 14 years ago.

“I valued this when I was in school just as much, if not more, than I value it now,” Jay Abitz said. “I don’t know that I saved it necessarily but I felt it was important to carry on.”

The classes teach not only the hard sills of working on cars, but other things, too.

“It teaches them to work to together. It teaches them to persevere, to problem solve to work hard and handle frustration,” he said.