April 10th, 2008
SMHS Students “Save the Day” at State FCCLA Conference

Eleven San Marcos High School students attended the state Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) conference at the Galveston Island Convention Center, April 3-5, 2008.  The theme of the conference was Save the Day with FCCLA and focused on the training opportunities that FCCLA offers to make each member a “superhero.”

San Marcos High school students attending were:
Andrea Gonzales
Rebecca Pastrano
Heather Pastrano
Kierstun Kinney
Yesenia Mercado
Erica Livingston
Melissa Sustaita
Jenny Tobias
Bianca Hernandez
Jessica Perez
Angelica Prado

Andrea Gonzales, Melissa Sustaita, Kierstyn Kinney entered Leadership Enhancement Opportunities in which they took a test on the purposes of FCCLA.

Six students entered competitive events called Star Events, designed to  help develop leadership and service among members, according to SMHS teacher and sponsor Dana Hutnyak.

Yesenia Mercado and Erica Livingston entered the Entrepreneurship Star Event.  For this event, they created a business plan for opening a Youth Medical Clinic.  They compiled information about how they would house and operate the business and presented their plan to judges.

Heather Pastrano and Rebecca Pastrano used information from a book entitled How to Teach Your Child to Love Reading by Esme Codell to assist them as they made reading fun for children.  They held many reading activities for their relatives and the children in the Sunset After School Care program.  Some of their activities focused on celebrating author’s and illustrator’s birthdays, raising a reader by cooking and reading, sitting in a time machine to travel through time through literature, taking students on a career exploration day and reading to them about careers en route, having pool time in which children sat in a pool as they were read to and learning more about the environment and bullying through literature.  Bianca Hernandez, Jessica Perez and Melissa Sustatia also helped with the project.

Bianca Hernandez and Jessica Perez placed fourth at state with their project on “Bullying”.  This program was entered in the National Programs in Action category.  Jessica and Bianca worked with students at De Zavala Elementary to help the younger students understand the impact of bullying and how to stand up to bullies.

All attendees listened to guest speakers who encouraged positive lifestyle choices.  They also were present as student leaders from across the state took the stage and led the conference in ceremonies. Members also participated in the Slide to Save a Life event at the Schlitterbahn Waterpark in Galveston.

SMHS student Jenny Tobias will lead FCCLA Region V as a State Vice President next year.  She attended informational meetings to help her assume this role and will also attended a leadership camp at T Bar M in New Braunfels and the National meeting in Orlando, Florida this summer with her sponsor, Beth Parker.

Hutnyak added, “San Marcos residents can be proud of the accomplishments of all these members, who, through their projects and leadership, really did “Save the Day with FCCLA’.”