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CHEYENNE, Wyo.—Attending an automotive technical school on the windy Wyoming plains might seem an unlikely way to get on television, much less score a regular TV gig, but WyoTech graduates have done both.

The latest ones on camera: Ramon Saenz and Doug Swenson, who were taped in Tennessee this week as they painted a 1982 Camaro for an automotive show on the Spike network.

The recent WyoTech grads from the Denver area didn’t luck into TV. They earned it.

WyoTech rewards its top graduates—who study auto mechanics, chassis fabrication, auto body repair, painting and upholstery installation, among other skills—with the opportunity to appear on TV through the school’s long partnership with RTM Productions in Franklin, Tenn.

“It’s very flattering to be hand-picked for something like this,” said Eric Paul, an instructor at WyoTech’s Laramie campus who also was taped this week. “It’s definitely a motivational factor for those students who are still in school.”

The Camaro belongs to Spc. Kyle Jordan, of Pleasureville, Ky., who recently was deployed overseas with the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division.

First the car got a mechanical makeover—a ZZ4 350 crate engine, fully reworked suspension and American Racing wheels—with help from students at the WyoTech flagship campus in Laramie and campuses in Long Beach, Calif., Sacramento, Calif., and Blairsville, Pa.

Jordan was reunited with his baby on camera following the upgrades in January.

“I don’t think there was a dry eye in the place,” said Jim Cozzie, executive vice president of RTM Productions.

The mechanical work and reunion will be shown on “Horsepower TV” on Spike at 11:30 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. This week’s painting is scheduled to air on “Muscle Car” on Spike at 12:30 p.m. Aug. 21 and 22.

RTM Productions films several automotive shows as well as commercials and other TV projects. The company is just south of Nashville, sometimes called the “Third Coast” of the music and entertainment industries.

Saenz, 19, described himself as shy and a bit self-conscious while being taped.

“I don’t want to seem like the guy who knows everything. I don’t want to be that cocky person. I just want to come in here and do what I love to do,” he said.

He grew up around low riders, he said, and hopes soon to have a career doing what he loves: transforming beat-up, old cars into beautiful vehicles.

At 40, Swenson is more than twice as old as many WyoTech students. He enrolled after working 20 years in automotive sales and customer service, including a job in an aftermarket shop for off-road vehicles.

He said he got tired of paying others to do paint and metal fabrication work.

“It’s been kind of a second wind. With the economy and the way things were going, it was a good time for me to get out and learn a new trade,” Swenson said.

Both Saenz and Swenson graduated from WyoTech in Laramie in December. Both said they’re hopeful TV exposure will help kick-start their careers.

A couple WyoTech graduates have made careers of TV. One is Bryan Fuller, co-host of the Speed show “Two Guys Garage” and owner of Fuller Hot Rods in Atlanta.

Another is Jessi Combs, a 1994 graduate who got her break on the TLC show “Overhaulin’,” then co-hosted “Xtreme 4X4” on Spike from 2005 to 2008. Combs recently filled in on the Discovery Channel’s “MythBusters” while a host took maternity leave.

Combs said there’s a lot more to being on automotive TV than automotive skills.

“I mean, you have to have the looks, you have to have the personality, you have to have the confidence. You have to have the memory retention to recite your lines,” she said.

Even after stardom, though, she said she’s still a metal fabricator at heart.