BY ROGER SMITH
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN

INEZ — Martin County Board of Education shined their spotlight on Martin County High School FCCLA advisor Connie Harless and students during Monday night’s meeting.

Harless was on hand to accept certificates and share students’ experiences at the 2022 FCCLA (Family, Career and Community Leaders of America) National Leadership Conference June 29-July 3 in San Diego.

“I want to thank you all, first of all, for the support, to be able to provide this opportunity for my students,” Harless said. “I think it’s very important. It’s definitely leadership skills.”

Jayde Preece and Megan Mollett competed and captured silver medals for their Focus on Children toothbrushing project.

“That was awesome the first time around,” said Harless. “You know we’ve been in a COVID slump for so long, and it was good to get ourselves back out and be able to participate. I just know that it’s life-changing for a lot of these students to be able to participate like this. We’re hoping to have more next year to participate and get involved.”

The group ran into a little travel issue when their luggage got lost.

“It all worked out and we finally got our luggage,” commented Harless. “It was good for the kids to see that it’s OK if things like this happen; we can get past it.”

Harless said San Diego is one of her favorite cities.

“The weather is perfect and it’s such a nice city for the kids to see and get to do activities,” she said.

Michaela Preston and Shaye Gordon also attended the conference and got to judge competitions.

“With their leadership conference, they got to judge other events,” said Harless. “Now they know what other kids have done to get to national, and that helps them to be able to set their goals.”

Next year’s conference will be in Denver.

“That will be a pretty awesome spot, too,” said Harless. “We’ll start working toward that.”

Mollett accepted her certificate and told the board a little about the project.

“We focused on Martin County K-2 and basically taught them about dental hygiene,” Mollett said.

Gordon said she learned how important it is to know your speeches in competition and prepare for any questions.