Oatridge College trio are a real class act

Mar 5 2009 by Marjorie Kerr, West Lothian Courier

STUDENTS have picked up top prizes at a prestigious awards ceremony.

The landscaping and horticulture students from Oatridge Agricultural College in Ecclesmachan have picked up top prizes at the Lantra Scotland Landbased Learner of the Year Awards.

Colin Smith, who is 22 and from Blackburn, was named Overall Runner-up Landbased Learner of the Year, while 18-year-old Mark McKenzie, from Fauldhouse, who last month won the title of Horticulture Student of the Year by the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society, was given the new Award for Endeavour.

A third Oatridge prizewinner was 19-year-old agriculture student Kenny O’Connor from Skye, who was declared Higher Education Learner of the Year.

The awards ceremony was held in Crieff Hydro Hotel and was attended by the Scottish Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Richard Lochhead.

He praised the 60 nominees for the prizes and the organisations which provide training and skills for the sector.

Colin Smith is in the final year of his modern apprenticeship with Premier One, one of Scotland’s leading landscaping contractors, and since he joined them three years ago has been promoted three times, from apprentice to tradesman, to team leader and is currently a trainee contract supervisor.

He is married to Laura and the couple are expecting a baby in August.

“The overall winner picked up three category prizes, which is just incredible, so he deserved the top title,” said Colin.

“I’m just proud and delighted that I did so well against really tough competition.”

Mark McKenzie is from a Romany Gypsy travelling family and left school when he was just 10 years old to join his father’s landscaping business.

He enrolled at Oatridge when he was just 15, he was top student in his certificate course in Landscape Construction and Design and his now studying for his Higher National Certificate.

Kenny O’Connor is currently studying for the Higher National Diploma in Agriculture and is working his way through college.

He has a job on a farm at Strathaven in Lanarkshire, where he spends four days a week and is already building a reputation as a breeder of pedigree sheep.

He still finds time to return to his family’s croft at Dunvegan to help out at busy times, but his next ambition is to visit New Zealand to learn about sheep production there.

David James, the principal of Oatridge, was in the audience and said he was proud of the students’ achievements.

He said: “Our students have once again done incredibly well.

“We have been lucky enough to put forward the overall winner of these awards for four consecutive years, so to go home this yearwith three awards, including the runner-upto a truly exception young man, is verygratifying.”