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HARTINGTON — From early meetings to the national stage, local sisters have grown into leaders.
Both are fairly new at their FCCLA journeys but have already seen great success through the organization.
Katelyn and Lauren Uldrich attended FCCLA’s National competition earlier this July, and the two earned top honors in their respective events.
FCCLA competitions are largely made to encourage students to get hands-on experience with a future career they are interested in. The Hartington-Newcastle FCCLA chapter was national champions in a total of three events, and the Uldrich sisters played a part in two of them.
Soon-to-be sophomore at Hartington-Newcastle and chapter Vice President, Katelyn, competed in the teach or train, Level II event because she wanted to gain some teaching experience.
“I really want to be a teacher when I’m older,” said Katelyn. “My advisor recommended this to me last summer, and she said it would be a really good project because it shows you what teaching is like.”
For her project, Katelyn picked a topic, created lesson plans and visited the third grade class to teach them about systems in the human body.
“It was very hard coming up with the idea, because you don’t want to teach them stuff they already learned; they get bored,” said Katelyn. “I thought I did well because the kids did well. If they were able to understand it, that meant I was able to teach them well.”
The presentation was an evaluation of how she thought the lesson went and how the students did with the information. Along with personal evaluations and teacher suggestions, Katelyn crafted a portfolio and speech to share with judges at competitions.
“One thing that really sticks with you during competition is the questions the judges ask” said Katelyn. “They ask me questions that I wouldn’t have thought to think about during my project, so it makes you think on the spot.”
Katelyn was surprised by her victory and is grateful for the honor.
“I heard my name, and my mouth went wide open, and I looked over and everybody from our chapter was standing up,” said Katelyn. “It was very exciting, especially individually, for all the work I did.”
Katelyn said even though it was an individual event, her chapter members and advisor supported her work and helped shape her presentation.
“I had a lot of support that was help or advice from other members and friends,” said Katelyn. “I know they want to see me succeed and I want to see them succeed.”
Younger sister, Lauren, will be an eighth grader this fall and competed as a team with Lily Heikes and Brook Kalin. They chose to compete in the promote and publicize FCCLA, Level I event after some encouragement from their advisor.
The girls created flyers and posters to promote FCCLA and displayed them around the school and community. They also gave out birthday wishes, helped create T-shirts and taught 6th graders about what FCCLA is.
“It was all kind of difficult but was still very fun,” said Lauren.
Her sister competed in this event in the past, placing second at nationals last year, and was able to provide support.
“Katelyn helped a lot with ideas on our project because she did it before,” said Lauren.
Competing in a large organization as a junior high member was intimidating for Lauren, but it was a positive experience overall.
“It was a bit difficult, just because it was my first year, so I didn’t have a full understanding of what I was doing,” said Lauren. “But I think we caught on pretty easily.”
Working as a group often brings conflict, but Lauren said their group was supportive and worked together well.
“It was very helpful, we all had ideas, and we all asked questions together,” said Lauren. “We all supported each other at districts, state, nationals by saying, like, everything is going to be fine, don’t worry, just do your best. It made us all feel better when we’d say stuff like that.”
After all their hard work was completed, Lauren said they were still nervous to compete and present their project.
“I felt really nervous and I’m sure my whole group did too,” said Lauren. “We were surprised we even made the top 10 and then got first; we were just in shock and couldn’t believe it.”
Lauren is planning to continue competing and hopes to find a competition that includes teaching kids, such as the one her sister competed in this year.
