FCCLA students strike gold and silver at nationals

Five Saratoga High School students received gold and silver medals at the National Future Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) Conference July 7-11 in Nashville, Tenn.

Based on a 100-point judges scale, incoming junior Nick Smith and 2013 graduate Micayla Crimmins received gold medals, while incoming senior Harley Klemola, 2013 graduate Rachelle Wilson and incoming sophomore Rodrigo Escobedo all won silver medals. All five students won the right to go to nationals based on their placements at the state FCCLA conference in March.

“They usually just take gold medal winners from state, but if they find that a gold medal winner doesn’t choose to go or can’t go for some reason, then they offer it to silver, and if silver doesn’t want to or can’t go then they offer it to bronze,” said Linda Fisher-Perue, Saratoga High School FCCLA chapter advisor. “There were 9,000 people there at the national conference from all over the U.S., including Hawaii. I think pretty much every state was represented, and there were even people from Japan there,” Fisher-Perue said

After presenting to judges, Smith and Crimmins both received gold medals in the recycle and redesign category. They built marketable items made out of recycled materials. Smith built and gave a presentation on an automotive end table, and Crimmins did the same for three homemade coat racks.

“The coat racks I built were made out of barnwood and horseshoes for the hooks, and I had one that had cowhide on it, one that was painted and one that was natural,” Crimmins said. “You went into this big convention center room, and there were different stations for each project. My group was recycle and redesign, and each of the groups had these tables that you go and present to. I had a storyboard, a materials board and a marketing plan, and my plan just had to go through each of those boards and any papers on my table, like my planning process and the time log.”

Klemola and Wilson received silver in the interior design category, in which they had to design, color and organize a fictitious gutted apartment, complete with a design board and blueprints, under required specifications from a given scenario. Both girls had to work individually to come up with plans for the same apartment scenario and give presentations on their ideas to the judges.

Escobedo was the one out of the five to work in the applied technology category, in which he built and gave a presentation on a breadbox made out of BluWood and an ornamental moose with “Welcome” written on it. Fisher-Perue said all five students used the projects they displayed at the state conference, and had worked on for several months.

“It’s not just an overnight thing, these kids had been working on their projects since December,” she said. “That’s a long time to be dedicated to one passion, with all the other stuff that these kids are active in.”

Fisher-Perue also gave credit to Smith’s father, Phillip Smith, who used his truck to help transport all of the students’ projects to the competition.

“Another problem that people don’t think about is, ‘How do we get all of their stuff to Nashville?,’ but Nick’s father Phillip drove everything out from here to Nashville. He not only took ours, but he took all of Encampment High School’s students out too. He really helped us out and said ‘I’ll do anything for the kids.’”