Lakeside students win big at meet
Two Lakeside High School Family Career and Community Leaders of America members brought home gold medals from the national competition this summer.
Their adviser, family and consumer science teacher Sandi Taylor, won the Spirit of Advising award when the group went to the national meeting in Minneapolis in July. Each state has an Spirit of Advising award winner and she was recommended for the honor by the state FCCLA director.
At the Georgia Association of Career Technology Educators in-service meeting this summer, she won the state's Family and Consumer Sciences Teacher of the Year award. Taylor, who has taught for 33 years and has been at Lakeside since it opened, serves on the Board of Director for the state FCCLA.
"I was surprised," Taylor said. "Everyone kept asking me what I planned to wear at the luncheon and I'd say, 'I don't know. Why, is it important?"'
At the national competition in Minneapolis, four of her students participated in STAR (Students Taking Action with Recognition) events.
"You have to win first place at the state level to go on to the national level. All mine were ninth graders, so they competed in the junior division," Taylor said.
Ashley Baum won a gold medal for her illustrated talk explaining the work the chapter had done and her work with Girls Inc.
"You have to have a score between 90 and 100 to win gold," Taylor said.
Sana Hashmi won a gold medal in applied technology for her PowerPoint presentation on nutrition.
Brhandi Gilliam and Tina Campbell competed as a team in entrepreneurship, winning a silver medal for the company they developed called Christmas in a Jar. Last year the company developed dry cookie, soup and drink mixes that they packaged in jars topped with Christmas fabric. Their business plan was put into action last year and earned about $400 for the club. The chapter plans to implement the project again this year, Taylor said, though they will be culling some products from their line that didn't sell too well.
"It was one of the hardest projects to do," Taylor said. "You have to set it up like a business. They really deserved gold. It was a good learning experience. They had to develop the order forms and we printed them out and gave them to all the chapter members and we met after school and to fill the jars."
Also at the national competition, senior Brooke Cadle ran for a national office as Georgia's nominee, but didn't win. Brooke is currently serving on the State FCCLA Executive Council, as she has done since eighth grade.
"She's a very dedicated young lady," Taylor said.
Kimberlyn Horney, a Lakeside senior, is one of five state youth leadership board members.
Last year Lakeside's FCCLA chapter was named the region chapter of the year out of the six regions in the state and then went on to win the state chapter of the year title.
The chapter also won the national Financial Fitness award for the Christmas in a Jar business.
Lakeside's FCCLA chapter has 64 members. Statewide there are about 5,000 members. It's considered a co-curricular activity, integrated into the family and consumer science program.
The chapter plans to attend the Fall Leadership Conference at the FFA-FCCLA Center in Covington, Ga., on Sept. 20-21. There, officers will be trained and chapter members will be updated on state and national programs.