By Jacquelyn Perreira
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While most students are welcoming summer vacation with open arms, the students of HOSA were preparing for their national competition. They spent the first part of their summer preparing for the 2011 HOSA National Leadership Conference which was held on June 22 to 25 in Anaheim, CA.
“I would meet a lot with my team members whether it be at school or at Starbucks or the library, and sometimes when we came to school Ms. Chun would help us and she would sit us down and we would be asked a series of interview questions and then she would time us to see if our questions fit within the thirty second (time limit that would be set during the competition),” explained HOSA President Brianna Daranciang, who competed on the Medical Reading team.
This extensive amount of training paid off as one of the Health Education teams won first place in the nation in their category. “For us it was a sigh of relief, it was amazement … we were literally speechless. I was like hooting and cheering … we were just ecstatic,” explained former HOSA member Alumna Brittney Acoba.
The team consisted of four members: Acoba, and Alumna Joleen Baxa, Myrna Visperas, and Sharie Rivera. From the beginning of the school year, they were required to choose a topic that dealt with a health issue. They then took that topic and created a lesson plan around it to teach to groups of ten and twenty high school students. After that, they did multiple reflection papers and created a binder containing their work. The binder was to be presented to a panel of four judges through a speech of five minutes.
“It was … daunting because a lot of the judges, they’re from different states, they’re from different backgrounds and you don’t know how they’re gonna react to your topic, so it’s kind of hard to prepare for those kind of judges,” said Acoba.
As first place winners, they received gold medals. However, they were more than just that to the team and their adviser. “You don’t know how much this means. Because … it’s so hard even to get in the top ten … I’ve had students win bronze before, but I’ve never had a gold … (and) this (competition) was so tough. I thought … with sixty teams, what’s your odds?” said HOSA Adviser Candace Chun.
Their excitement was shared with other schools from Hawaii who were at the conference. “Everybody was screaming (when they announced the winners) … the whole Hawaii delegation (was) going crazy. Because it doesn’t matter what school you’re from, everybody just goes crazy that somebody from Hawaii won,” explained Chun.
HOSA plans to continue to work hard and bring home the gold.
