By Shan Yonamine
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Despite having a smaller group compared to other schools, the Family Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) club was able to secure four gold medals out of the five events that they participated in at the national competition, which took place from July 8 to 12 in Orlando, Fla.
“I’m extremely proud of (MHS and) our entire state too because … they practically all got gold medals, except our event,” explained FCCLA State President Senior Malina Reyes, who received a silver medal in the Culinary category of the competition.
Gold medal winners included Alumnae Jaycie Ige and Michelle Tsuda, who participated in the Focus on Children category, Alumna Rachel Ryan, who competed in Job Interview, and Senior Shelby Nakamura, who competed in Life Event Planning.
Having only five competitors allowed FCCLA members to be self-directed when practicing for their events. “I think they were good at working on their own, like they didn’t need a lot of guidance, so like they could do things at home, they could do things in class without me having to sit with them and work with them,” explained FCCLA adviser Karla Deguchi, to whom Reyes attributes much of their success. “Our advisers are really good … at training us I guess for our competitions, in my opinion, they’re one of the better advisers who take the time to train each of their students,” Reyes expressed.
In addition to aid from their advisers, competitors were also able to attend speech workshops along with FCCLA clubs from other Hawaii schools, where they got feedback from professors. “The professors really give you good advice … how they helped you and the advice they told you really did make a difference,” explained Nakamura, who is one of only two returning club members.
“I’m scared especially for the Mililani chapter because there was only two of us underclassmen,” stated Reyes, continuing, “So now there’s only two of us like returnees I guess, but I’m hoping that now that I went to nationals twice and now that I’m state president, I’ll have this experience to take on new people.” Nakamura added, “I’m hoping that our member count will go up after hearing how much fun me and (Reyes) and everybody had this year.”
In hopes of larger student participation, Deguchi has developed a class in which all students are required to complete an FCCLA project to spark their interest in the club; however it is optional to compete.
