A major tool retailer recently honored 30 skilled trades instructors from schools around the country with cash prizes to their schools and themselves.

Harbor Freight, through its Tools For Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence, handed out a total of $1.5 million in cash prizes to schools and teachers in 18 states.

The grand prize winners include:

• Jerry Agan, Agricultural Mechanics, Elizabethton High School, Tennessee
• Michael Driscoll, Industrial Technology, Bay View High School, Wisconsin
• Benjamin Peters, Industrial Technology, Nekoosa High School, Wisconsin
• Hugh Roberts, Carpentry, Cabell County Career Technology Center, West Virginia
• Terrell Taylor, Construction, Merrillville High School, Indiana

Each prize is $100,000, which includes $70,000 for their school’s skilled trades program and $30,000 for the teacher.

Also, 25 other prize winner awards include a total of $50,000. Of that amount, $35,000 goes to the school’s skilled trades program and instructor receives $15,000.

The prize, now in its ninth year, was created to recognize excellence among high school skilled trades teachers, a group of educators who Harbor Freight said are frequently overlooked and underappreciated. As of today, over $10 million has been awarded to more than 180 teachers and their programs through the prize.

“Through a rigorous application process, our prizewinners shared their unique depth of experience and skill for teaching the skilled trades,” said Danny Corwin, executive director of Harbor Freight Tools for Schools.

This year there are winners are from Arizona, California, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. A full list of winners is here.

The Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence was started in 2017 by Eric Smidt, owner and founder of Harbor Freight Tools.

This year there were more than 1,000 applications for the prize. The application process included three rounds of judging, each by an independent panel of experts from education, industry, nonprofits, and philanthropy.