While attending the conference, members had the opportunity to expand their leadership potential and develop skills for life planning, goal setting, problem solving, decision making and interpersonal communication necessary in their future families, careers and communities.
STAR stands for Students Taking Action with Recognition. STAR is a competitive event component of the FCCLA organization. This competition allows students to select a category related to family and consumer sciences education, family/community, outreach, leadership or community/global issues. Students then have extensive criteria to follow in which they apply FACS-related knowledge and skills, develop an in-depth service based project utilizing those skills, carry out the project, and then create a professional presentation to share out the results, experience and skills gained.
The theme of this conference, “Start Somewhere,” challenged FCCLA members to use their leadership skills to make a difference in their families and communities. Two returning seniors earned gold medals. Freshman Jeniffer Kincher not only received a gold medal but placed second in the state earning her way to compete at the national conference this summer in Nashville, Tenn. Six competitors received silver medals and two bronze.
“The competition this year was tough. The majority of students competing have a few years under the pressure, but we have a lot of first time members/competitors. I’m very proud of all these young women. They are strong, educated and dedicated to happy, healthy futures. This is just the beginning,” said Brenda Hummel, family and consumer science teacher and FCCLA adviser.
Senior Linda Lombardi completed her year as the state officer of public relations. Lombardi had many wonderful experiences including a trip to Washington, D.C. to advocate for career and technical education, visiting numerous chapters in the state, and working with the state officer team to create a program of work as well as put on a challenging state conference.
“Ms. Lombardi stepped out of her comfort zone to grow as a leader. Her experiences will be with her forever. She was a great asset to the state officer team and a great representative of Meeker High School. I am so proud of Linda,” Hummel said.
