BILLINGS — The 39th annual Holiday Parade took place Friday evening in downtown Billings; Among the floats was one created by Career Center students.

“We decided the welder kids would create a welded UFO for us, and we’ll have aliens and people walking around with UFO umbrellas,” said Aurora Anttila, president and founder of the Career Center Student Advisory Council.

The theme of this year’s parade was “out of this world.”

“It wasn’t necessarily horrible, but it was just, like I said, a pain to make it perfect,” said Robbie Mourich, a Career Center welding student who helped hand-make the UFO float.

Passionate about his profession, Mourich says he appreciates the specialized courses at his school because he believes they will better prepare him for his future.

“It’s almost like an art. When you’re out there, setting a bead or drawing an arc – I don’t know. It’s just something special,” Mourich said.

One of 1,200 other students at the Career Center, he said he aspires to become a pipeline welder after he finishes high school.

“Sometimes I think about counting, because sometimes I tend to speed up. So sometimes I have to slow down. I mean, there’s a whole series of things. Sometimes I sing a little song to myself,” Mourich said while explaining the welding process.

Rob Paul, a social studies teacher at the Career Center and advisor to the student advisory council, said he thought the welding students “blew (the float) out of the ballpark.”