MOUNT ULLA — Two years ago next week, Dylan Smith had a guardian angel watching over him. The then-rising West Rowan junior was in a terrible accident that destroyed his car and broke his femur in three places.

The injury left Smith, who was an avid masonry student, in a bit of a disposition.

“It was pretty tough to be able to go back to laying (bricks),” Smith said.

Undeterred, in fact, more motivated than ever, Smith never gave up and just last month won a national gold medal at a SkillUSA Workforce Development competition in Atlanta.

When his name was called among the top 3, he went to the stage thinking that he surely finished third.

“As soon as they called the third person and it wasn’t my name I thought, huh, I guess I got second,” Smith said. “They call out the second place and I said, ‘Wait a minute, they didn’t call out my name or say West Rowan High School … I did not think I would win.”

The recent West Rowan graduate indicated that it did not come easily.

“A lot of practice but it definitely paid off,” Smith said.

When Smith first got to West Rowan, masonry was not even on his radar. He took a suggestion from a friend who was in masonry and who had worked with former West Rowan masonry teacher Rodney Harrington.

“I took it freshman year and I fell in love with it,” Smith said.

During the next couple of years, Smith discovered a knack for the craft. He also loved how masonry offered him an outlet to do things around the community from Habitat for Humanity builds to wellhouses.

“All sorts of stuff really,” Smith said. “It’s a fun thing to go out and help the community.”

Then, in early July before his junior year came the car crash. Smith returned home from a 4th of July holiday with his family so that he could resume working at his job in Mooresville. On his way back home, his Jeep ran off the road. Smith believes that the wreck was caused by faulty equipment that resulted from a collision earlier that year, when a woman ran a red light and hit him.

“Ended up going off the side of the road,” Smith said of the July crash. “Took out a stop sign and a mailbox, completely took a power pole out. Still didn’t stop.”

Smith said the vehicle finally came to rest on a tree.

“It took them about two hours to cut me out of the car,” he said.

All things considered and looking at the damaged vehicle, Smith thinks he fared alright.

“For how bad the wreck was, I only came out with a broken femur in three places,” he said.

He returned to school that August.

“Probably until January of that next year, I had to take it easy,” he said. “I could barely walk.”

A tissue infection near his knee emerged about a week after the surgery and he had to go back to the hospital. Given the infection’s location, Smith said he lost his ability to bend his knee.

“I took physical therapy for about 8 months, three times a week,” he said. “I have my full range now.”

Slowly but surely, he got back into his masonry routine as well.

“Dylan continued practicing,” Harrington said. “He would come to my house in the evening and we would work on these projects. Then he goes and starts winning competitions.”

Smith explained how those competitions look.

“We have a state competition every year in Greensboro,” Smith said. “There were around 50-60 people competing this year. We build a block and brick project. It is a three-hour project.

“How they grade it is we have five or six criteria where we need to be. Measurement wise, level wise, stuff like that. The grading tool is every 16th of an inch is a point. Every 16th of an inch that your project is off, you get a point. Whoever has the lowest score after three hours wins the contest.”

If three-hours sounds long, the recent competition in Atlanta was six hours.

“We had a design we had to put in the wall but it had to be projected out of the wall,” Smith said. “The actual design inside the wall was a half inch sticking out, so you have like a 3-d design on the front.”

Harrington is no longer the masonry teacher at West Rowan but he has followed Smith every step of the way.

“I knew it was going to be close,” Harrington said. “Luckily, Dylan is an extremely sharp kid. Always has been. He scored really well on his written test. They combined that score with the score that he got with the skill part and he won by one point.”

For Harrington, Smith’s journey back and ultimately to the top of his craft for his age, has been a sight to see.

“(After the crash,) Dylan was lucky to be alive,” Harrington said. “It put him in Baptist Hospital. He was on crutches for five months or more, just trying to recover … He did not get to do a whole lot of practicing last year, so for him to come back this year and be able to win best high school bricklayer in the country is just incredible.”

Smith plans to keep working for now and when he turns 21, he wants to become a N.C. Highway Patrolman.

The SkillsUSA Championships event is held annually for students in middle school, high school or college/postsecondary programs as part of the SkillsUSA National Leadership & Skills Conference. The national, nonprofit partnership of students, instructors and industry is a verified talent pipeline for America’s skilled workforce that is working to help solve the skills gap.

“More than 6,500 students from every state in the nation participated in the 2025 SkillsUSA Championships,” said SkillsUSA Executive Director Chelle Travis. “This showcase of career and technical education demonstrates SkillsUSA at its finest. Our students, instructors and industry partners work together to ensure that every student excels. This program expands learning and career opportunities for our members.”

Two other locals place in competitions as well.

• Adam Crow, from China Grove and a student at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, was awarded the college silver medal in industrial motor control.
• Emmalyn Sides, from China Grove and a student at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, was awarded the college silver medal in masonry.