Parsons High School juniors Addy Hetlinger and Ava Meyer and sophomore Heidi Shultz felt very confident as they exited the State FCCLA STAR Events judging of their project and presentation in Food Innovations Level 3 in Wichita last week.
Hetlinger and Meyer placed first and advanced to nationals in 2024. Shultz joined them last year, and the trio placed first, advancing to nationals again. So this year they were pretty sure they would again secure top gold, and advance to nationals in Washington, D.C. this summer.
“When they came out, the judge said, ‘You literally covered everything in the rubric so we don’t really have any questions,’ so they were feeling pretty positive,” FCCLA sponsor Courtney Shafer said.
To advance to nationals, competitors must earn one of the top two scores in the state in their event.
Shafer said the girls learned Tuesday they earned gold, and top place in the state, but had to wait until Thursday to learn how the judges had scored them.
“We got the results back and they had scored 99 out of 100. I’ve never had anybody ever get over like a 94. They literally had an almost perfect score. To get first is awesome. To get first with 99 out of 100, I just think they deserve some sort of recognition,” Shafer said. “These girls put in a lot of work. It takes a lot of hours and the girls put in a lot of effort.”
The girls said they were a little nervous when they got there because they saw someone with a similar idea to theirs, but once they got in front of the judges and began, all those concerns vanished. They were ready.
The competitors were challenged this year to create a food product targeted for teens that features locally grown or produced ingredients to support sustainability and community agriculture.
The girls were looking for something hyperlocal, available year round, and zoned in on beef, deciding to create jerky bites.
“Addy’s grandpa is a cattle farmer so they went and talked to him,” Shafer said.
The judging rubric used is very detailed and strict and encompasses all areas of the competitors demonstrating basic food concepts of food product development by creating an original prototype formula, testing the product though focus groups and developing a marketing strategy. They also created an information display board to show all this process.
“They have to make sure they are staying within the school nutrition guideline, and the nutrition guidelines(FCCLA) gives them. They have to try it out. They have to create packaging with all the correct information on it, like nutrition information, ingredients, weight, name, directions.
The product could contain no artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives,” Shafer said. Sugar and sodium guidelines were also enforced.
They ended up with their product they named Holy Cow Bites from their imagined company Kickin’ Cow.
Meyer said the judges usually keep pretty straight faces, so it is hard to tell if they like your presentation.
“But then they started smiling, and they started laughing, which eased our nerves, and then at the end, they said we covered everything, so we were pretty confident in it,” Meyer said.”I feel like we were just confident in ourselves already, because we practiced and went through it’
One judge did give the girls a perfect score, but two others found a place to take a point.
“It’s like some judges won’t give a perfect score,” Shafer said. “They just look for some place to take off a point.
Regardless of the point lost, they scored higher than any others in Shafer’s time as teacher at PHS. Those scores determined by judges are not shared publicly, unless a school chooses to, so it is unknown how other schools scored in the state in the same event. This leaves schools focusing solely on their own performance.
“It was really nice because there was a lot of anticipation.,” Hetlinger said.
“I didn’t expect it to be perfect ,or to be such a high score, because like last year we got first but we were still missing quite a few points. We were just the highest out of all of them,” Meyer said.
“I’m super proud of them,” Shafer added. “I’m super proud of all of the girls who went to state. They did amazing.”
Placing second place in the state and also advancing to nationals is Lauren Forbes, Cadence Manners and Sadie Ray for their project and presentation in Repurpose and Redesign Level 3.
Placing third in the state, receiving a gold rating, a score of 92 and consolation national qualifiers are Kamryn Duncan, Chloe Marquardt and Marissa Valdez for their project and presentation in Repurpose and Redesign Level 2.
Nationals is the week after the Fourth of July.
Shafer said she has had students place fourth and fifth in the nation in their categories, but with this trio’s high score at state, she is hopeful they could secure a top place.
At nationals, there will be close to 100 people the Parsons girls are competing against, and it is not the same judges judging the students all day like at state. There are different groups of judges, who can have very differing opinions when they don’t see one group competing against another to directly compare.
The girls said nationals is an intense competition, but they feel more confident than ever just based on their scores at state.
“Now we really want it more than like in past years,” Hetlinger said of a top win at nationals “We think we can do really good.”
