Three Nashville Junior High School students attended the national FCCLA Leadership Conference this summer in San Diego. They were accompanied by FCCLA adviser Tammy Elliott and Cristal Perez.
The students included Kimberly Perez, Hope McCauley and Baili Wiley. They received national Power of One Awards at the conference.
“They did an excellent job of representing Nashville,” Superintendent Doug Graham told the school board last week as he recognized the group.
Perez is the first NJHS FCCLA member to compete in Life Event Planning, where students apply skills learned in Family and Consumer Sciences class to manage the costs of an upcoming event. They select the event, prepare a budget, comparison shop, prepare a portfolio and write a speech.
Perez prepared a 30-page portfolio and wrote and memorized a 10-minute speech about her Quinceanera, 15th birthday celebration. After her presentation, she answered evaluator questions. She earned a gold medal at Nationals. The award is only presented for scores of 90 to 100 points.
Evaluator comments included “Great comparison shopping, loved the presentation, exceptional portfolio, provided a lot of information, you are very educated about the event and I think you learned a lot with this project, great voice, you are amazing, literally the best project.”
Earlier, Perez competed in District and State STAR events, receiving the only gold medal in her event at state and qualifying for nationals.
McCauley was elected to serve as the 2016-17 District 5 FCCLA vice president of public relations. She was one of six FCCLA members statewide to serve on the Arkansas nominating committee in January. The committee selected the state officer team.
Wiley is one of six NJHS chapter officers.
The three NJHS students were among 8,400 FCCLA members who attended the national conference.
Overall during the past school year, the NJHS chapter helped raise more than $1,000 for the Jimmy Avery fund. They participated in community service projects for Arkansas Children’s Hospital and district and state FCCLA outreach projects.
The NJHS FCCLA received the top two state awards, including the Gold Star Chapter Award and last year’s state project award LEGO, which stands for Leadership, Experience, Growth and Opportunities.
“We are awfully proud of these students and what they’ve accomplished,” Graham said.
