Rookie of the Year
In 2025, Joey Gibbs Graduated from High School, Finished Runner-Up at SkillsUSA Nationals, and Started a Full-Time Career in Commercial Plumbing
Joey Gibbs has been around the plumbing trade his entire life. His father owns a residential plumbing business, and Joey recalls playing with PVC in the way his friends grew up playing with Legos. He set his first toilet at age 5. As a student at Harris County High School, he was as much a mentor to other students as he was a pupil himself.
“It was unreal,” Joey recalls. “I don’t even know how to explain it. I was so excited.”
At the time, Joey had just graduated from Harris County. Soon after his return from Atlanta, he jumped right into a full-time career with Booth Plumbing Company in nearby Columbus, where he’s working on a barracks renovation project at the Army’s Fort Benning.
He’s also met the qualifications and applied to become a licensed Journeyman in Georgia, a considerable achievement for an 18-year-old just a few months out of high school. Once he officially receives the license, he can expect to earn between $55 to $65 an hour.
Joey’s head start in plumbing was further accelerated by a homeschool education that extended through his ninth-grade year. The flexibility of homeschooling allowed him to start early each day and finish his studies by noon, then ride with his father to plumbing jobs in the afternoon.
“I always knew I enjoyed it,” he says. “I always had fun.”
Joey also was into baseball, which is how he came to attend Harris County High and become an integral part of CTAE instructor Joshua Tracy’s program. As a homeschooler, he was allowed to compete for the high school if he enrolled in one course on campus. He chose construction as a freshman, and he ended up attending HCHS full-time from 10th through 12th grade.
When Joey competed in his first SkillsUSA contest as a freshman, he was hooked.
“I was like, ‘Dude, this is crazy. I love this,’” he says. “So it just evolved from there.”
He qualified for the national championships that year, finishing 15th. As a junior, he again made it to the national stage and placed 9th. Then he went out almost on top as a senior.
“When I got to Nationals [in 2025], the first 10 minutes into it I was like, ‘This is the last time I ever get to do this,’” Joey remembers. “I said, ‘Let’s finish out with a bang.’ I love the atmosphere of it. It’s so much fun.”
Joey credits several construction teachers he had over the years, but he says Tracy (pictured with Joey, above right) was particularly influential in his life and education.
“Great guy,” he says. “There was always such a good morale and atmosphere in his class.”
With his advanced knowledge and skill set, Joey was able to serve in an unofficial assistant role to Tracy, helping him tutor less-experienced students and prepare them for competition. By his senior year, the program had advanced so much that Harris County won seven out of eight regional contests it entered to qualify for the SkillsUSA Georgia Championships.
“I was excited and happy that other students could be there too,” Joey says. “I always tried to talk up [SkillsUSA] as much as I could. Even if they don’t want to compete, just let them observe and see the different things they could do in construction.”
Joey continued working for his father’s business his junior and senior years, doing so through his school’s Work Based Learning program.
At his new job, Booth Plumbing Company, the change from residential to commercial plumbing brought with it a learning curve. Joey says it’s been a challenge, but he is adapting successfully.
“It’s just on a different, bigger scale,” he says, “But I’m settled in now and I love it. One of the guys I work with told me, ‘You’re new here. You’re really young. Everybody gonna think you’re a rookie, but you’re really a veteran.’ He called me a rookie veteran. I liked that.”
Considering Joey’s fast-track development as a plumber, he’ll surely be able to drop that rookie designation soon.
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