FCCLA's future leaders golden at nationals

It was a golden summer for three students in Spring Lake Park High School's Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) program.

Last spring, as freshmen, Josh Anderson, Rick Osborne, and Alex Pierce earned Gold Award at the FCCLA State Conference for their Focus on Children project on healthy eating and exercise that they conducted with Learning Ventures childcare program students at Park Terrace Elementary.

That performance earned them a trip to FCCLA's national conference where they competed in the leadership skills competition. This was held in July in Orlando, Florida.

At nationals, they again took home the gold, this time scoring a perfect 100 points. The judges were obviously impressed with their project, titled "Take Action," in which they created multiple learning sessions with elementary-aged students around the benefits of developing healthy eating exercise habits.

On Sept. 11, now-sophomores Josh, Rick, and Alex visited to the School Board meeting where they, along with advisor Lori Henry, reported on their success at nationals over the summer, and gave an encore of their golden performance in Florida. Not only were they experts at the subject matter, but their practiced gestures and constant trade-off of lines from their memorized dialogue delighted all in attendance.

Spring Lake Park's FCCLA chapter was also selected, for the second year in a row, as a national award-winner -- this time for its Career Connections project -- and accepted a plaque and $1,000 at the Florida conference.

Another FCCLA member, Jessica Borgert, was one of 14 students in the country who came out on top of a selection process to earn a six-week summer cultural exchange program trip to Japan. The Youth for Understanding program is a partnership between Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America and the Kikkoman Corporation.