Last Friday, Feb. 6, select York students who are enrolled in FCS classes headed out to the College of DuPage to compete in this year’s FCCLA Competition. There are five different event categories one can participate in at the competition: culinary, fashion construction, fashion display, interior design, or children’s literature.

There are five different event categories one can participate in at the competition: culinary, fashion construction, fashion display, interior design, or children’s literature.

Culinary Events

Beginning their work months ago, all the competitors in the culinary events of Friday’s competition worked incredibly hard to prepare for their event.

Junior Julianna Gecsey said, “I had to go out and buy all of my stuff and then the rest of it was a lot of late nights dying frosting and fondant to cover my cake.”

However, cakes are not the only culinary event that FCCLA has. There is also a category for salads.

Senior Rachel Atristain said, “I had to practice my knife cuts and creating the salad to prepare for today to see what I had to change to fix.”

Atristain created a Caprese salad– a salad with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil. Surprisingly enough, though, the taste of the salad does not matter.

“The judges do not eat the cake, they just look at it. I had to buy placemats, forks, and knives to set it up like a real meal,” said Atristain.

As for the cakes category of Friday’s event, every year there is a different theme. For example, last year the theme was movies.

“This year’s theme is anniversaries and I wanted to do a theme that is interesting to me so I chose Monster’s Inc,” said Gecsey.

This was Gecsey’s first year competing in FCCLA, so her nerves were definitely there on Friday. 

Before the presentation, she said, “I’m nervous I’m not going to have enough time to roll out my fondant. I’m feeling pretty tense.”

Fellow cake competitors, Junior Sam Flesh and Sophomore Emily Schlecht, both created different cakes.

Flesh’s cake was National Park themed for their 100th anniversary. Schelecht’s cake was themed for the 15th anniversary of Millennium Park in Chicago.

For the cake category, one can also create something with cookies. Sophomore, Ally Geary did exactly this for her Disney themed cookies.

“I’m decorating my cookies for Disney’s Anniversary,” said Geary, “It’s a huge cookie and I used smaller cookies to decorate, all sugar cookies.”

Aside from cookies, cakes, and salads, another event is a relish tray. Many people are unaware of what a relish tray is.

“A relish tray is a tray with vegetables that are all cut,” said Sophomore Kevin Hohman.

Just like all other events, one must create a theme for their relish tray.

“I’m doing olive penguins with a carrot beak and there will be cream cheese egg looms,” said Hohman.

Competitors in the culinary events on Friday truly enjoyed taking part in the competition.

Interior Design

Along with other events, the Interior Design category required a ton of preparing. Competitors in this category had to create a display board that incorporated many different requirements such as tile samples.

“I had to do a ton to prepare,” said Sophomore Kima Barannik, “I have had to stay after school a lot for the past four months.”

The Interior design category had to prepare a layout for a children’s camp— designing everything from the office to the bedrooms and choosing color schemes for the entire thing. 

“We had to print out pictures, find samples, and find furniture that fits the area we were given,” said Sophomore Allison Evans.

Not only did they have to find the furniture, but they had to make sure it all matched. 

“I did neutral colors, like warm colors. I used eclectic furniture, meaning different styles combined together,” said Sophomore, Lauren Noonan.

The competitors in this event said that the hardest part of creating their display was drafting due to the math that is involved.

“They give you specific measurements that you have to put in a fourth-inch scale, so you have to do the math to figure it out,” said Evans.

Overall, the girls had so much fun taking part in this year’s regional competition and hope that they did well enough to make it to state.

Fashion Apparel Display

Seniors Ally Peterson and Abbey Templeman were a part of the fashion apparel display category on Friday.

“We had to make a display window for a store,” said Peterson.

The display had to include a title and the actual items that would be sold in a store display. Similar to other events, there, of course, was a theme that each competitor had to base their design off of.

“This year the theme was sports, so we chose to put our display in Dick’s Sporting Goods,” said Templeman.

Not only do they have to choose a theme, but they have to choose the proper audience to gear their display towards.

“We’re focusing on advertising for people to do their best in whatever sport and getting healthy,” said Templeman, “and to be their own olympian.”

Unlike other fashion events in FCCLA, this category does not actually make and design the clothing.

“They are our clothes and we just display them with certain elements that we have learned in Fashion Merchandising class at York,” said Templeman.

The girls were able to work together on this event which they said was great. They loved being able to take part in such a fun event and were happy to be able to learn a lot about fashion merchandising. 

Fashion Events

In this category, students have to design and create an item of clothing for either casual, semi-formal, or STAR events. Similar to other events, a ton of preparing went into it.

“Other than actually creating my garment, which took around 15 hours, I had to pick out accessories as well,” said Senior Bridget Strawbridge.

Sophomore, Jolie Gundrum was also in the event under the Semi-formal category where she created a purple strapless dress with tool and a blue ribbon belt.

“It took me about ten to fifteen hours to create my dress,” said Gundrum.

Waiting to go into their presentations, Gundrum and Strawbridge were pretty nervous. At FCCLA, there is a different hallway for each event, and you have to wait there for your name to be called, which can take hours.

“I feel anxious and stressed,” said Strawbridge, while she was waiting to be called into the presentation room.

During the presentations, they judges also ask several questions.

“I’m worried about the questions the judges are going to ask me,” said Gundrum.

Strawbridge was in the casual attire event on Friday. 

“I made a swing dress which is petite in the shoulders and it has a rounded hem so it swings as you walk,” said Strawbridge, “It is black and white grid pattern.”

Gundrum was in the semi-formal attire event on Friday.

“I used an oriental pattern that is purple and floral,” said Gundrum, “It feels very Asian.”

Unlike Strawbridge and Gundrum, Junior Madison Miller was in a STAR event.

“A STAR event is a more specific event that can lead you into nationals,” said Miller, “So it is a bit more competitive.”

In addition to creating an actual piece of clothing, more goes into a STAR event due to the more competitive nature of the category.

“I had to create a garment with my own pattern and then I had to make a display around the garment based off what it is made of and why I chose to do what I did,” said Miller.

Miller wanted her piece to be contemporary, yet still feel somewhat old or antique. 

“I made a black corduroy romper, but I made it more modern,” said Miller, “However, by adding antique buttons, I still achieved that old-time feel.”

After her presentation, Madison felt good about what she had created. 

“I thought it went pretty well. I was confident, I made eye contact, and I smiled,” said Miller.

If the girls get awarded silver or gold in their events, they will be able to go to state which is held every year in Springfield, Illinois.

Children’s Literature Presentations

A lot went into preparing for Friday’s event, especially in the Children’s Literature category.

“We had to make a felt presentation to present in front of children,” said Junior Katie Rambo, “We had to write a lesson plan, practice our story and have pictures being taken of us.”

The hardest part was having to memorize the story that they presented to the children; however, the children were not real.

“We had to prove that we have presented in front of children, between we go to actually present, there are no children there,” said Junior Elena Vezmar.

The competitors had a lot of creative freedom to create what they wanted for this category.

“We chose to create a shadow box which is where we cut out a bunch of different animals with the box we have, when the lights are off and the light hits it, there is a shadow,” said Kaitlin Templeman.

All competitors of the Children’s Literature section feel like their presentations went well and cannot wait to receive their results.