STAR students prep for nationals
PEARCY — All eight students from the Family, Career and Community Leaders of America club at Lake Hamilton High School recently won silver medals or better at state and four qualified to compete at the national event this summer.
The state Students Taking Action with Recognition events were recently held at the Conway Expo Center. Only the top two scores in each event qualify for nationals.
FCCLA’s National Leadership Conference will take place July 2-6 in Nashville, Tenn. Lake Hamilton junior Caitlyn Lopez attended nationals two years ago when she attended Lakeside.
“Being able to meet our national officers was pretty awesome,” Lopez said. “We see them on TV and all of these conferences we go to, but we never actually meet them.”
Lopez qualified this year with teammates Haley Wootten, senior, and Jillian Johnson, junior, with gold medals in the Chapter in Review event. Lopez
previously went to nationals in the same event, but competed as an individual.
Chapter in Review recognizes chapters that develop and implement well-balanced programs of work and promote FCCLA, family and consumer sciences, or related occupations and skills to the community. The team must update their portfolio up until the national conference.
Junior Morgyn Baker won a gold medal and advanced to nationals in Fashion Design, an individual event which recognizes participants who apply fashion design skills learned in FACS courses to design and market clothing styles. Participants must submit original designs, construct one of their own designs, compile a portfolio, determine the materials they would use and present the information to judges.
“I felt like they all had a really good chance, because they worked really hard before the district competition,” said Amanda Porter, the high school’s FACS teacher and FCCLA sponsor.
Medals are awarded based on a scoring system and do not determine who advances to the next phase. Multiple gold, silver and bronze medals can be awarded in each category.
The District 6 competition was held in November at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia. The Chapter in Review team earned silver at district.
The team of juniors Kallie Lowder and Hannah Murders won silver medals in Interior Design at district and at state. Stormie Kilpatrick, junior, and Lainey Bodiford, sophomore, earned gold at district and silver at state in the Food Innovations event.
“I knew we needed to work on some things in order for them to place well at state, because it is much more rigorous and it is difficult to make it to nationals,” Porter said.
Porter said the teams retooled their projects and used the judge’s score sheets from district to improve their projects for state. Johnson, Lopez and Wootten said they were nervous during their state presentation, especially after their portfolio fell off its stand as they presented to the judges.
National qualifiers are announced after medals are presented. The team expected to earn a silver or bronze medal, but Lake Hamilton was the only school to win gold in the event.
“I think I had tears coming out of my eyes when they said, ‘Lake Hamilton, gold,’” Lopez said.
“I am looking forward to meeting new people,” Johnson said. “I never do anything like this and it is new for me. I like learning new things and STAR events helps that. Going to nationals to be able to learn new things about leadership and how I want to go on with my future, I get to learn that there. I’m excited for it.”
Senior Harley Bland is the school’s FCCLA president this year. Wootten is the parliamentarian. Lopez is the club’s vice president of public relations and will be the District 6 vice president of programs next school year.
“I have several going interested in being officers next year,” Porter said. “We can use the information they learn and apply it to our year as we plan and do projects.”
The club is currently conducting fundraisers around school, including selling personalized keychains, to cover the costs of the trip. Dr. Kevin Hale agreed to allow the club to use the parking lot of his office at Hamilton West, 1629 Airport Road, for a yard sale on May 6.
Several students from Lake Hamilton Junior High will also travel to the national conference. Jill Tolleson, the junior high’s FACS teacher and FCCLA sponsor, is retiring at the end of the school year.
“She gets her kids ready at the junior high,” Porter said. “So when they get to me at the high school, they already have a little bit of experience. We work together a lot. We couldn’t do it without Mrs. Tolleson.”
Porter said Chris Groves, English and special education teacher at the high school, was also influential in the club’s success this year. She served as a chaperone at the state competition and assisted many of the students, including Lowder and Murders, with their projects.
“I started out with so many kids trying to compete, it was too many for me to get them ready because they were all doing different events,” Porter said. “She was great and said, ‘I’ll help.’”