BLOUNT COUNTY, Tenn. — Lilly Dunn is a national champion, and she works her muscles in a place that isn't a typical gym.
She's pumping iron in Maryville inside the William Blount High School Career Technical Education Center's workshop. Dunn's a welder and she's pretty good at it, too.
She was crowned the champion of this year's SkillsUSA welding competition in Tennessee, and she is heading to Atlanta next month to compete in the national contest.
"About three and a half years ago, I came to the high school and I did a little welding here and tried it out," Dunn said. "And it was a lot of fun. I was very interested in it. And so right off the bat, I started doing it. And it was something I really enjoyed."
Dunn's winning creation is an intricate sunken pirate ship, complete with sharks, a shipwreck and metal shaped as wind-tattered sails. She spent more than 150 hours, including time at her welding job with Axis Fabrications, creating the piece out of sheet metal.
She wasn't given a prompt or theme to follow for her sculpture — just a few ground rules.
"So they give you certain dimensions that you have to follow," she said. "You can't put any paint on it. You can only put a clear coat on it. There's certain things that you have to use in certain parameters that you have to abide by."
Her award-winning sculpture is the thing she's most proud of in her career, so far.
She said there are not many female welders and she is thankful for the support of her male colleagues in her welding classes.
"A lot of people, whenever they see me, they're like, 'Oh, she can actually weld,'" Dunn said. "It's not just because she's a woman that she's here. It's because I can actually weld. It's different to have a woman in this field."
Dunn said she's excited to continue working as a welder after she graduates in a few weeks.
People are retiring from the trades, so it's good that members of the younger generation are stepping up to fill those spots, she said.
"It's something that we need," Dunn said. "The entire world needs it."