LHS Clubs Win Awards

Anna Simms

DECA students show off their awards from the state competition.

Sydney Davis, Reporter

Liberty’s Key Club, FCCLA, Cuivre River Youth Tour winners, the Robotics team, and HOSA have all recently had amazing wins. 

Key Club: 

At the District Leadership Conference, Liberty won the following awards:

Public Relations Award (Sruthi Ramesh), Second Place in Digital Poster (Amanda Speciale), Second Place in “Show Your K” shirt design (Amanda Speciale), Second Place  Single Service Project Award for the LHS talent show, Third place for the scrapbook, Sruthi Ramesh won Member of the Year, Sruthi Ramesh was named one of two Distinguished officers in the Missouri-Arkansas area, Sruthi Ramesh won Member of the Year, Sruthi Ramesh also won first place in the Oratory Contest, Trent Stuerman won first place in the talent show playing piano, First Place Best Key Club Video (Anumitha Vaka), Trent Stuerman was elected District Lt. Governor for Missouri-Arkansas, Santosh Manikandan elected District Secretary for Missouri-Arkansas, Maddie Ashlock, Jaden Zelidon, and Mahathi Manikandan held three of those four posts this year (Governor, Secretary, and Treasurer) and planned the entire conference. 

“Since we are a service organization, and these are all things geared towards service or growing our Key Clubs, there is no overall point winner. However, if there were, [Liberty’s] Key Club would have come out on top,” announced Key Club sponsored Matthew Barker. 

FCCLA:

Paige Quinn, Katlyn Larson, Emma Thomas, Micaela Garcia, and Violet Grau compete in Tan Tara.

Liberty’s students earned a gold medal at FCCLA State Conference in Tan Tara. 

Katlyn Larson and Paige Quinn competed in the Focus on the Children category. Emma Thomas competed alone in the Promote and Publicize FCCLA category. Micaela Garcia and Violet Grau competed in the Interpersonal Communications category. 

They will all be going to the National FCCLA Conference in San Diego, California this summer.

Cuivre River CYCLE Program: 

Kaitlyn Benesek, Arthi Kondapaneni, Ella Murphy, Reese Ramier, Samantha Flynn, and Alexa Graham have advanced to the final round of competition for the Cuivre River Youth Tour. There are 12 finalists in total; the top six will win a week-long all-expense-paid trip to Washington DC, and the other six will win a $500 scholarship. They compete on April 6 at a banquet.

Robotics Team:

The Robotics team (from all four high schools) competed in Olathe, Kansas on March 17-18. They finished first in the rankings during qualifying matches (11-1) and won the competition with their alliance partners, playing 17-2 overall. In addition to bringing home a blue banner for winning the competition, the team also claimed the “Excellence in Engineering Award.” With the win, they have earned a spot at the world championships in Houston, taking place April 20-23. The team competed again at the St. Louis Regionals from March 31-April 2 at Chaifetz Arena. 

Aden Buchanan, Alex Kercher, David Jarrett, Kayden Lauman, Santosh Manikandan, Xander Tracy, and Dagon Williams are all of Liberty’s competitors.

HOSA:

Liberty had 16 HOSA members qualify for and compete at Round 2 of the HOSA: Future Health Professionals State Leadership Conference (SLC) in Rolla on March 28 and March 29. Liberty had 10 members qualify to attend the International Leadership Conference (ILC) in Nashville taking place this June. Saiya Ameen, Emma Thomas, and Jaden Zelidon received the Barbara James Service Award for completing over 100 volunteer community service hours related to health. Lauren McCain and Laney Torbit placed second in the Health Education event. Fiona Do, Sophia Fiorino, Amelia Huebbe, Anna Morrison, and Julia Wiley are State Champions in the Parliamentary Procedure event. Emma Thomas and Zoey Hoselton were given recognition on stage at the SLC for placing fourth in Prepared Speaking (Emma) and fifth in Medical Spelling (Zoey). Lastly, the LHS HOSA chapter received a certificate of recognition for the HOSA Service Project for the members’ contributions to Be the Match.