Whether Brylee Samples is playing softball for the Dora Bulldogs or welding a new project, she gives her all.
Samples, a senior at Dora High School, is in her third year of the Walker County Center of Technology’s welding program. Welding wasn’t her first career choice, but she will tell you it’s the choice that changed her life.
“It was probably the best decision of my life that I came here. I don’t think I would love anything else as much as I love welding,” she said.
Samples likes to get her hands dirty and has helped her father with HVAC work for years. Once she learned about opportunities at the Walker County Center of Technology, she applied to study there. Her first career choice was cosmetology, but her second choice was welding. When the cosmetology class was full, she was placed in welding.
“I started, and I just fell in love with it. It’s a great thing that I didn’t go into cosmetology and found my love for welding,” Samples said.
Truthfully, welding aligned more with her interests.
“I like challenges, and I like being in a men’s field. I can be a girly girl, but I like doing outdoors and manly things,” she said.
Samples said she loves the challenge of welding and how she has been able to use it as a non-traditional art form. In Edward Poff’s welding program, she has made pumpkins, turkeys, Christmas trees, reindeer and snowmen out of various metals, particularly horseshoes.
In her spare time outside of school, she recently welded flowers as Mother’s Day gifts for the mothers in her life. She made the flowers out of metal washers and other materials. She also plans to start making other things using some horseshoes provided by her aunt.
Her favorite form of welding is flux coil. According to the Universal Technical Institute, “Flux core welding, also known as flux-cored arc welding (FCAW), is a type of welding that uses a continuous hollow wire electrode to meld metals and other materials together. Flux core welding is suitable for materials contaminated with dirt and rust, making it ideal for outdoor and contaminated environments.”
“I feel like flux core goes in easier and it’s easier to get what you want where you want it,” she said.
Samples said her favorite aspect of welding is being able to create things, and to have a challenge doing it.
“I’m a perfectionist. I like trying to perfect things, and that first time (I tried to weld), I couldn’t really perfect it,” she said. “I was like, ‘You know what, I’m going to get this. I’m going to perfect it,’ and I love being able to perfect it and the challenge it brings me to be able to perfect it.”
Samples is a member of Dora High School’s Beta Club for students who excel in academics, and she plays softball. In addition to her welding skills, she was also recently certified to drive a skid steer through an opportunity offered by Bevill State Community College. She’s currently dual-enrolled with the college and plans to continue her studies there after high school.
Samples has her sights set on working one day in the welding department at ACIPCO (American Cast Iron Pipe Company), a manufacturing business based in Birmingham that produces various products for waterworks and energy markets using welding techniques.
The Dora senior acknowledged she’s entering a male-dominated field, but for her, gender is irrelevant when someone has the skills to prove their worth. Also of note, Samples is one of many young women in the Center of Technology’s welding program.
“If you really love what you’re doing — male trade, female trade, whatever — you will put in extra work, no matter how hard the challenges are. You’ll continue,” she said. “You’ll want to come to work and do the best that you can do, no matter what you’re doing.”