3 A.W. Beattie students earn silver medals at FCCLA national competition

A trio of A.W. Beattie students recently earned silver medals in the national Family Career and Community Leaders of America competition in Anaheim, CA.

The FCCLA competition was attended in early July by Pine-Richland’s Victoria Compernolle, North Allegheny’s Ryane Taylor and Hampton Township’s Alyssa Toscano. Each attended the career center’s Early Childhood Education program.

Silver medals were awarded to competitors who earned an 80 to 89 percent score in their category. FCCLA medals at the state and national levels are not awarded based on scores compared to other competitors.

Compernolle competed in the Early Childhood Education category and earned second place at the state level to advance to nationals. She won a state championship with Samantha Shideler in 2018 for her Chapter Service Project Display and was a part of FCCLA for three years while attending the career center.

“Between state conferences at Seven Springs and Kalahari and National conferences in Nashville, Atlanta, and California, FCCLA always provided me with opportunities to grow as a person and as a leader,” Compernolle said. “Each year that I competed, whether it was state or nationally, held its own once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Taylor and Toscano earned second place at states in 2019 for Chapter Service Project Display. The team worked for several months to organize an Open Mic Night that raised $632 for the National Alliance on Mental Illness and presented the results in a speech to a panel of judges.

“Together we toured California and Disney, took a leadership crash course at Disney, met new people, and cheered each other on,” Compernolle added. “We spent hours preparing for our competitions and worked our butts off.  All the hard work has finally paid off because we made it.  Together, we made it to Nationals, competed and placed for an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Two A.W. Beattie students earned FCCLA state championships in March, but could not advance to Anaheim due to there not being an established national competition.

Northgate junior Josh Eddy won the Pennsylvania FCCLA championship for Food Art. A Culinary Arts student, Eddy made a sculpture of apple birds, radish mushrooms and strawberry roses. He incorporated them into a decorative display of a palm tree.

North Allegheny’s Jacob Mann earned a state championship in Knife Skills, which showcases each competitor’s knowledge of knife skills and cuts, knife cut identification and a knife skills demonstration.