“Top Arizona FCCLA Students Place Big at the
Spring Leadership Conference”
Submitted by Dennis Fiscus.
Arizona FCCLA Spring Leadership Conference took place on March 29-31 for the first time at the Westin La Paloma Resort and Hotel in Tucson, AZ. Over 800 students, teachers, business members and community leaders from all across Arizona attended. Of the students who competed there were “189 Gold Medal Winners,” “289 Silver Medal Winners” and “267 Bronze Medal Winners.” This year’s event increased in size by 20 chapters.
Amongst the March 29-31 medal winners were AZ FCCLA Culinary Competitors. This year’s culinary event was hosted at three different locations: Pima JTED at Marana, Pima JTED at Santa Rita and The Art Institute where 47 teams competed from across the state. The Final top ten winners battled against each other on Friday to become the Top Competitor to be eligible to compete nationally. This year’s National Competitor for Culinary Arts is Canyon Del Oro High School of Tucson.
Workshops hosted by Tri-Leadership, Inc. were provided for students to participate in Leadership activities during the duration of the Conference between events. EATiquette introduced dining etiquette while Enrique Feldman taught students how to use rhythm with Early Childhood children, just to name a few.
In attendance was the Arizona Department of Education’s Deputy Associate Superintendent Mark Hamilton on behalf of Superintendent John Huppenthal. Mr. Hamilton also toured the events.
Chapter members socialized amongst each other at the luau dinner where member and advisors competed against each other in games and events. AZ FCCLA also hosted its first annual Gala dinner/dance where the dance team Footklan lead the music and performed their dance show.
There will be 130 students who will go on to represent Arizona at the FCCLA National Leadership Conference taking place July 7-12, 2012 in sunny Orlando, Florida. While competing in FCCLA’s national awards program, the students will compete for top honors in their competition against state representatives from across the United States and Puerto Rico.
The competition is part of a national competitive events program sponsored annually by FCCLA, a professional association for students pursuing careers in Early Childhood Professions, Hospitality Management, Fashion Design and Merchandising, Interior Design and Culinary Arts. Individual and local chapter teams compete in 40 different events representing a range of business, career and leadership development activities.
The winners of these challenging and prestigious awards are selected from Arizona FCCLA’s 4,400 members and by winning these competitions some have qualified for the national awards program. The delegates at this year’s State annual meeting elected the 2012-2013 FCCLA State Officer team. This year’s state theme, “Learn It, Live It, Be It!” reflects the traditions and challenges that FCCLA offers students to prepare for family life, work life and careers in family and consumer sciences by providing opportunities to develop the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors that are needed to be successful in life.