Behind the Scenes...Voting Delegates

It's summer, and that means staying up late and sleeping late, right? But what if you're one of Missouri FCCLA's eight National Leadership Conference voting delegates? Well, the staying up late part is right, as everyone here at NLC is attending late night meetings and then staying up talking when in our rooms. But as a voting delegate, I started my day at 6:00 a.m. today to get ready to listen to national officer candidate speeches.

This morning Missouri's voting delegates listened to our Central region officer candidates give speeches and answer one fact and one situation question. In case you're curious, the fact question was "In what year did Future Homemakers of America change the name to Family, Career and Community Leaders of America" and the answer is 1999, in Boston, Massachusetts. The regional situation question was "Your principal did not approve an activity that your chapter wished to do. What would you do to convince him/her to change their mind?" All of the regional candidates answered the fact question correctly and gave great answers to their situation question.

After the Central Region speeches, we then listened to the twelve at-large candidates give their speeches and answer questions. The fact question for the at-large candidates was "What new STAR Events were introduced this year" and the answer was 1) Teach and Train 2) Promote and Publicize FCCLA. Their situation question was "A member of your chapter refers to the organization as 'formerly FHA.' How would you politely correct them?" Again, nearly all of the at-large candidates answered the fact question perfectly, and all gave excellent answers to the situation question.

After the speeches, the voting delegates met with Katherine Hoffman (a former national officer from Missouri) and Christine Hollingsworth, the state advisor. We discussed each candidate in detail and carefully scored them based on their knowledge test results, interviews, resumes, letters of recommendation, and their speech, questions, and presentation style. Each voting delegate made the case for casting their vote for the candidate that was not only of their choice, but that they felt would represent the organization in the best way. It was a privilege to be able to be representing our state in this process.

So how did my 6:00 a.m. wake-up day end? Not until after 11:oo p.m., after we had cast our votes. This was a great experience and I would definitely recommend that any chapter member wishing to run for state or national office ask to be a voting delegate in the future.

Submitted by C. Gillenwater, Region 1 State Vice President