On Feb. 11, two dozen students from Dawson County High School represented their county at a regional competition, and 23 of them will be going on to compete at the state level in March.
The regional Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) competition allows for students in the organization to compete against students from other schools in a wide variety of events, all of which showcase useful skills and concepts. To move on from the region competition to the state competition, students must score a gold or silver medal in their events, with gold being 90 or more points out of a possible 100 and silver being 70 to 89.99 points.
According to FCCLA Advisor Lori Grant, seeing 23 of the 24 students who competed move on to represent Dawson County at the state competition is a huge feat for DCHS.
“We had so many compete and this is a first for me,” Grant said. “It was pretty exciting — we had so many new competitors who have never competed and these seniors who have competed before really stepped up and helped them prepare.”
The students have each been working on their projects since August, so moving on to the state competition is a welcome reward for all of the hard work, DCHS Senior Avery Yarbrough, who competed with two other teammates in the Interpersonal Communications event, said. Her project was based on the recent Dawson County pageants that she and several other FCCLA officers were instrumental in putting together.
“I said I didn’t care if we made it to state cause I was so happy with how the pageant turned out and I said ‘whatever happens, I’m proud of ourselves for promoting it the way we did’,” Yarbrough said. “But then we got to advance and we got the highest score — I was really happy that the judges liked it as much as we did.”
Yarbrough and her two teammates earned a 90.33 out of 100 possible points, securing the top spot out of eight schools competing in the event. She said that she’s very excited to move on to the state competition to present their project again, and that between now and then her team and all of their fellow students moving on will be working hard to improve their projects based on the judges’ comments.
Amy Smith, the high school’s Career, Technical and Agricultural Education (CTAE) Director, said that she is incredibly proud of the hard work that each and every student put into their projects.
“Our students were so prepared; I felt like they were leagues above everybody else,” Smith said. “They just worked so hard and they’ve all done a really good job — they really represented Dawson well. We’ve had a really good year already and it’s not even over yet.”
The students who competed at the region competition and their events were:
Alexis Delgado, Megan Loui and Aaliyah Orlando: Chapter in Review Display level 2; silver medal
Ellie Bishop, Hailey Rickett and Hannah Rickett: Chapter in Review Display level 3; gold medal
Chatham Burnett, Zach Cruz and Declan Rhodes: Chapter in Review Portfolio level 2; silver medal
Abagail Darlow, Madilyn Lee and Amy Sanders: Chapter in Review Portfolio level 3; gold medal
Audrey Collum and Macie Rahn: Chapter Service Project Display level 2; gold medal
Addison Cantrell and Andrea Gonzalez: Chapter Service Project Portfolio level 2; gold medal
Daisy Sanchez and Keyli Velasquez: Chapter Service Project Portfolio level 3; gold medal
Paul Brisebois and Alisa Hutchison: Focus on Children level 2; silver medal
Macy Clark, Hannah McCracken and Avery Yarbrough: Interpersonal Communications level 3; gold medal
Jules Phillips: Baking and Pastry
The 23 students who are continuing on will represent Dawson County at the state competition on March 24. For information about sponsoring the students in FCCLA or donating to their competition fees, contact Lori Grant at lgrant@dawson.k12.ga.us.