Sheldon FBLA celebrates National FBLA Week

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Nevada Daily Mail

The Sheldon FBLA prepared for the celebration of National FBLA Week, which ran Feb. 8-12. Plans were made by the members to do something special each day of the week.

President Zoey Bray had several suggestions and with the approval from the members, special events for the week were:

Monday, Feb. 8 -- Member Appreciation.

Tuesday, Feb. 9 -- Teacher Appreciation.

Wednesday, Feb. 10 -- Professional Dress and District Contest at MSSU.

Thursday, Feb. 11 -- All-School FBLA Spirit Day with everyone invited to wear Blue and Yellow and show support and spirit for the Sheldon FBLA.

Friday, Feb. 12 -- Members lunch in Mrs. Lockard's room.

The Sheldon FBLA has five members in the high school division of FBLA. Officer and members are Zoey Bray-President, Logan Lamb-Vice President, Marissa Rector-Secretary, Amy Brzuchowski-Treasurer, and Deaven Jacobs-Parliamentarian. Adrian Arnold was the reporter, but she moved to Nevada.

In the Sheldon Middle Level FBLA, which is for students in grades six through eight, members are Meckinize McCartney, Ethan Copenhaver, Nici Hites, Shyler Middleton, and Isaac Hall.

Both the high school and middle level groups compete and participate in many activities throughout the year. Both levels help to run the recycling at the Sheldon School. The adviser, Christy Lockard, and the members work closely with the City of Sheldon to educate and make use of recycling clean paper, plastic, aluminum cans, tin cans, and cardboard at the school.

The FBLA members work to educate all students in grades PreK-12th in how they can become a big part of recycling at school and at home to help reduce waste in the Sheldon area.

FBLA is in the process of beginning to recycle the milk cartons and also start a compost bin for food waste. The FBLA members realize by recycling all the items they do and the new ones they are adding on, that the waste at the Sheldon School will be reduced greatly.

The Sheldon Middle Level FBLA members also compete in LifeSmarts. The first round of testing is online and the Sheldon Middle Level FBLA members were able to be one of the top eight teams in the State of Missouri, so they will move on to state competition in Jefferson City Tuesday, Feb. 23.

Zoey Bray, senior, representing the Sheldon FBLA, also competed with other students Drake Curry, Nic Pitcock, Evan Brock, and Tori Spencer, who are all juniors, to make a LifeSmarts team and their scores ranked them as one of the top 12 teams in the State of Missouri, so they will compete at LifeSmarts State competition Wednesday, Feb. 24, also in Jefferson City.

Both high school and middle level FBLA students stay on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school from 3:06-4:15 to practice for FBLA contests and LifeSmarts contests.

"It takes dedication to put forth the effort to practice every week for these events," said Lockard.

Before Christmas, both the high school and middle level FBLA members teamed with the elementary students to collect hats, gloves, mittens, and socks to donate to students and people in the area that need them. "This was a great success and many items were collected and distributed.

"Our FBLA District 17 also challenged each individual FBLA to collect 'Dimes for Babies,' which was donated to the March of Dimes at our district meeting on Feb. 10. The Sheldon FBLA collected $53, which was added with the other FBLA groups in our district and together we raised a total of $1,779.20 to make a large donation to the March of Dimes."

Another activity that is in the planning and the Sheldon FBLA does every year is to hold a middle school dance for students in grades four to eight.

"We look forward to hosting that for those students."

No specific date has been planned but the dance is usually held in either March or April. The members also have a small concession stand at the dance. The dance admission and concession stand is used as the fundraiser.

At the FBLA District contest that was held at MSSU Wednesday, Feb. 10, it was announced that Zoey Bray received second place in the accounting contest, which advances her to the state competition in Springfield in April. We will also take voting delegates to state contest that will vote on the new state FBLA officers.

Thursday, Feb. 11, the All-School FBLA Spirit Day was a "great success." The FBLA members challenged all classes from PreK-12th grade to wear the most blue and yellow. The class in Pre-K-six and seven-12 grades that had the most students participate by wearing FBLA colors wins a prize. The winners were Pre-K (Preschool) with a 100 percent of their students wearing blue and yellow. In the 7-12 grade contest the seniors came out with the win with 100 percent of them also wearing blue and yellow. Prizes to the winning classes were given out on Friday, Feb. 12.

The high school division of the Sheldon FBLA was started by Mrs. Christy Lockard in 1998 and since then has had about 115 members since it started.

The Middle Level group was added about six years ago but just joined the national and state FBLA in the fall of 2015.

Missouri FBLA is ranked second in national membership. Even though Sheldon doesn't have a large number of members, every member helps Missouri rank 2nd in the national membership, said Lockard.

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