The 17-year-old had been feeling "poorly" for most of the day but perked up when he was awarded his prize at the celebration held at Adventure Southland last Thursday.
He had not expected to get the major award but was also relieved and happy at the same time.
He initially started doing construction which was "pretty tough" but ended up doing electrical work which he had learnt "to love".
"Doing this programme has helped open up opportunities for me in the future," Kasseus said.
The former Cook Islands resident and Australia-raised student was awarded a $3000 prize.
Highly commended winner Caitlyn Flack said she was really shocked to be named runner-up and was thankful to her school for putting her forward for the award.
"I’m really thankful that I even got an opportunity to do this, and I’m thankful for my school for making me be a part of it."
The Winton local was given a $1000 prize to go towards future tertiary study.
The Central Southland College student did the Trades Academy pathway and looked forward to starting a two-year cadetship through farming next year.
Great South-Southland Regional Development Agency launched the awards to celebrate Southland students who had excelled in work-based learning.
The awards were created to support the next generation of Southland’s workforce.
Students who "showed excellence" while taking part in workplace learning programmes organised by the agency were nominated by their schools for the award.
Throughout the year, Southland secondary school students had undertaken training at the Trades Academy, Gateway or gained work experience via multiple Southland businesses.
Great South chief executive Chami Abeysinghe said the Southland Youth Futures programmes were about enabling youth to understand the opportunities that came from vocational education.
"It is about developing our future workforce and being able to support them with these vocational excellence awards," she said.
She hoped that other businesses would join Rio Tinto, HW Richardson Group and SIT and support the initiative.
The winners were chosen from 21 schools across Southland.
— Published by arrangement
