Two Greene County High School students have qualified for a national contest.

Ninth graders Maggie Mikkelsen and Brooke Williams earned gold medals at the recent Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) state contest and are moving onto the national competition slated for this summer in San Diego, California. The duo did their project in the Nutrition and Wellness category assessing nine high school teachers and their health. A survey was conducted among the participants and Mikkelsen describes what happened next.

“Then we had teachers track what they ate in a week. We did a lot of research on like sleep habits, what adults should eat, and what you should do to like combat stress and stuff. And then we made four goals and we wrote a nutrition and wellness plan for three weeks.”

To go to nationals, the two scored the most points in their category and Williams talks about her initial reaction when she found out that her and Mikkelsen were moving on.

“I was pretty surprised honestly. Maggie and I’s event, which is Nutrition and Wellness, we were the only, I think, freshmen. I think the second oldest were either juniors or seniors. We were the youngest ones there, this is our first year doing this, this is our first time ever going to state, and we got to go to nationals.”  

Joining Mikkelsen and Williams are the other FCCLA team from Greene County with Emma and Ella Shipley and Hailey Carman who also earned gold medals for Food Innovations but weren’t selected for nationals. The National FCCLA competition will take place June 29-July 3rd.