Students at the Career Academy of Pella had their work featured on the national stage Monday for the Iowa Caucus.

Sheila Graham’s welding class created the metal support sculpture for a mini butter cow featured on the Today Show.

Senior Trent Schippers was among the students that were invited to the program, and tells KNIA/KRLS News he was excited to see the buzz surrounding the morning’s festivities, and that he learned a lot from visiting the set at West End Salvage.

“Some of the neat moments that stick out in my mind were getting to meet Al Roker–he’s a pretty neat guy, he’s all what he’s cracked up to be,” he says. “I found it very neat to be a part of because being behind the scenes of a TV show, you get to see what’s all going on, there’s always something happening behind the scenes.”

Dalton DeBoer says the class was able to complete a lot of work in a few short days.

“Monday we figured out how to put the cow together and how to cut parts and ground them down, Tuesday we finished up the base we built for it and the Today Show sign,” he says.

A group of students joined Schippers and DeBoer for a morning long field trip to Des Moines to see their hard work on display.