SALISBURY — East Rowan High School seniors Wyatt Trexler and Mason Ridenhour started 2024 on one heck of a high note.

On Jan. 24, the two won the Spec Mix Junior Bricklayer 500 World Championship held in Las Vegas, Nevada. Both of them take masonry courses at East Rowan taught by David Payne, who accompanied them to Las Vegas. Payne said seeing the two friends win was one of the “highlights” of his career.

“They are a good team, they communicate. It’s lovely to watch those two work together. They’re constantly communicating, they’re constantly striving together to win,” Payne said. 

For Trexler and Ridenhour, competing is a major factor in what drives them to succeed.

“I just like competing. I like the rush,” Trexler said.

One time before he was set to begin a bricklaying contest, Ridenhour accidentally cut the tip of one of his fingers off, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him and he ended up finishing in fifth place. 

After doing well enough at a regional event here in North Carolina, Trexler and Ridenhour were then invited to participate in nationals. When they first got there, it was intimidating seeing all of the people they were contending with.

“The older guys that we were going against, it was a little scary at first,” Trexler said.

The overall goal of the competition is to lay as many bricks as possible in 20-minute intervals with little to no blemishes. All told, they stacked 193 bricks. 

“It has to be sellable brickwork, it can’t be done just any kind of way,” Payne said.

After they were announced as the winners, Trexler and Ridenhour were on cloud nine.

“I was very surprised. I didn’t really realize it until afterwards when you take it all in,” Trexler said. 

“After I won, it was the biggest relief you could ever imagine because for weeks and weeks we were practicing out in the shop until 9 o’clock at night every night just practicing and grinding it out,” Ridenhour said. “It’s a thousand pounds off your shoulders.”

When they graduate in the spring, Trexler wants to pursue farming while Ridenhour plans to take over his family’s bricklaying business someday. If this national title is any indication, Payne is confident Trexler and Ridenhour will continue their winning ways in the years to come. 

“If you think that our future looks bleak because of our young people, you’re looking at the wrong young people because the boys I’m working with make our future look very bright,” Payne said.