A group of Greene County High School students are preparing to travel to a national competition next week.

The Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) National Leadership Conference is taking place from July 2-6 in Denver, Colorado. Five students, including Maggie Mikkelson, Brooke Williams, Haley Carman, and Ella and Emma Shipley qualified earlier this year to compete. Carman and the Shipley twins are competing in food innovations where they made Oreo and s’mores cookies with less than ten grams of sugar. Carman describes the details of their category.

“Well we made one batch of cookies and then we had to have a trial group test them and rate them. And then we had to go back and make changes based on those comments. And then we had to do a trial group again and then after we do that we have to market the cookies, and make like packaging and just figure out how we’re going to sell them.”  

Mikkelson will take her topic about recycling at the high school in the sustainability contest, while Williams is going to compete in the “Say Yes to FCS” category where she observed two Food and Consumer Science classes at two different schools, then created and executed an FCS lesson plan. Ella Shipley talks about what she is looking forward to the most at the National Leadership Conference.

“I’m looking forward to the overall just whole experience because last year going to California was a lot of fun. I’ve always wanted to go to Colorado so I think this will be a good experience.”  

All five students attended the national FCCLA conference in California last year, with Mikkelson and Williams participating in each of their categories.