Five Howell High School students have advanced to the National Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) Students Taking Action with Recognition (STAR) competitive events after claiming the highest scores and gold medals in the state level events. Julia Armbruster, Hale Attard, Corin Becker, Jordan Champagne and Morgan Rollins will all represent Howell High School and Michigan at the national conference this July.
Attard will be competing in the Career Investigation category for her research into the job of a child life specialist. Becker and Rollins will be competing in the Entrepreneurship category for their small business plan for a coffee shop. Armbruster and Champagne will compete in the Life Event Planning category for the spring break trip that they planned. In each category, the students had to use the lessons learned in their Family and Consumer Sciences courses for their project.
“The feedback we received from the judges was very positive. Both judges were business owners, so it was great to hear that business owners thought our business plan was a solid one,” said Becker.
“Going to the FCCLA state conference was a great experience, and I am so glad I got to do it,” said Rollins.
“I am looking forward to going to the national conference and meeting people from around the country,” added Armbruster.
All of the students praised their teacher, Mrs. Cathy Hengesbaugh, for her support and leadership.
In addition to the students advancing to the national STARS events, nine other Howell High School students attended the FCCLA Michigan Leadership Conference and competed in the STARS events. Emily Pawelski and Olivia Shepard earned a gold medal in the Illustrated Talk category, Destynee Dinkel and Samantha McEvoy earned a gold medal in the Scrapbook category, Sarah Roth and Michaela Taylor earned a silver medal in the Life Event Planning category, Brittany King and Jean Heinonen claimed a silver medal in the Focus on Children category, and Brooklynne Ackerman earned a bronze medal in the Early Childhood event category.
In addition to competing in the STAR Events, students also attended several workshops at the FCCLA State Leadership Conference. This is the second year in a row that students from Howell High School have advanced to the National FCCLA STARS competitive events.