Carpenter shines at national FCCLA convention

Lovell High School student Hugh Carpenter had the opportunity to attend the FCCLA national leadership conference in Orlando, Florida, July 5-10. More than 10,000 student members went to the annual event from across the country to celebrate leadership, learning and service.

After earning the top award at the state level for his project on entrepreneurship, Carpenter qualified for Nationals and decided to individually enter the competition to see where his project stood against the best in the country.

“Who wouldn’t want to see if they could be the best of the best?” he asked. “Winning State motivated me to go and get critiqued at a larger level and take the opportunity to learn and improve for the future.”

His project included making a business plan for a potential business that could be started, maintained and tracked based on 100 high school students. His restaurant idea was created around panini sandwiches, acai bowls and ice cream and projected earnings of $200,000 per year. His focus was developing a great experience and providing high quality goods to customers.

At State, he received a score of 99 out of 100 on his project’s rubric. After making some corrections and improvements, he submitted his business plan into the national competition. To receive a gold medal, participants must receive a score of 90 or above, and Carpenter achieved that mark.

He received one of the 16 gold medals earned by contestants in Orlando to add to his collection.

As the first FCCLA state officer (vice president of competitive events) from Lovell, he didn’t view the opportunity to go to nationals as an obligation, but more as setting an example for future members of the program.

“I really wanted to improve myself and my leadership abilities to learn how to help other members grow and guide them to be successful,” he said. “I feel like it gave me valuable knowledge and experience.”

He already sees prospective ways to provide improvements that can be made for the LHS club for growth and progress and make connections to utilize moving forward. 

“FCCLA stands for Family, Career and Community Leaders of America, and to me, that represents the present, not just the future, so we can be leaders now,” he stated. “As a whole, the experience was fun. I met a lot of new people, and it was a very friendly and positive atmosphere.”

Carpenter hopes to encourage more students to get involved in FCCLA and feels its diversity provides a spot for everyone to be included.

“I truly believe that FCCLA is the best club available to be a part of,” he added.

 “I am so proud of him. He represented Lovell and Wyoming well,” former club advisor Alana Thackeray said. “His project was very well done. He has really stepped up as a leader in the program, and he has a very bright future ahead of him.”