Members of the Madison County High School Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) chapter attended the annual State Leadership Conference in Orlando, during the weekend of March 4 through March 6. This year's conference, with the theme ‘Discover Yourself with FCCLA,’ was held at the Doubletree Hotel in Sea World. 11 students, their advisor and two chaperones represented the chapter.
On the first evening, members attended the opening general session. During the session, members participated in the opening ceremony and presentation of the colors. After greetings from Dr. Sylvia Tricarico, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Anne Nyman, from the Department of Education, the delegates got down to the business of electing the 2016-17 State Executive Council. Members listened to president-elect candidates give their speeches and answer symposium questions. They then listened attentively to at-large candidate speeches. This was followed by a short time to caucus. Voting delegates from MCHS, Allison Buchanan and Jayla Hall, then shared with the chapter's delegation the information they had gathered from direct interviews with the candidates.
After a brief discussion, the delegates cast the chapter’s votes for the selected candidates.
The second day was competitive events day. The chapter had nine students competing in various events, beginning at 9 a.m. that morning and ending at 2 p.m. in the afternoon. The students attended an awards ceremony on Sunday morning to receive their awards. The student from MCHS who competed and was recognized during the Florida Events was Dylan King, who won a silver medal during the decorative food centerpieces event.
Other events were the Students Taking Action with Recognition (STAR) events, which are proceedings that are sponsored by the national organization. Within the STAR events, the delegates from Madison who were winners in this national competitive group of events were: Shera Berman, who won a gold medal in the ‘Promote and Publicize FCCLA!’ event; Charlie Blanton and Caleb Hart proved themselves as Environmental Ambassadors in the Senior Division and won a silver medal for their efforts; Tyler Burnette and Lizzie Frakes, Senior Division members competed in the ‘Focus on Children’ event and won a gold medal ; Maddy Gurley and McKenzie Miller competed in ‘Life Event Planning’ Senior Division and won a gold medal and Dakota Mobley competed in ‘Applied Mathematics for Culinary Arts’ and won a bronze medal.
“We are very proud of these students’ accomplishments,” wrote Robin Smith, Family and Consumer Science teacher at MCHS. “They represented Madison County High School extremely well.”
Former Madison County FCCLA members also came to judge the events. To qualify, one judge is needed for every six competitors and with eight former members attending the event, Madison County more than qualified. “This says a lot about the caliber of kids we are producing,” said Smith.
Former members that attended were Laurie Smith McHargue, Alumni Representative to the Board of Directors; Chris McHargue, Keeley Smith, Lacey Clayton, Sarah Baltzell, Amelia Blanton, Victoria Todd and Magan Jennings. “They each gave freely of their own time and money to be with us [during the competition],” said Smith.