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Three Southeast Bulloch students shine
Each earns national honor
SEB Nationals for Web
Three Southeast Bulloch High School students recently qualified for national conferences in three service groups. Pictured, left to right: Valerie Noles, Megan Lanier, Principal Joni Walker-Seier and Katlyn Hamiliton. - photo by ROGER ALLEN/special
     At Southeast Bulloch High School, there are many organizations and associations students may belong to, including Health Occupation Students of America (HOSA), the Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA), and the National FFA (formerly Future Farmers of America).
      This year, a student from each organization will represent Southeast Bulloch at the national conferences for each of the three groups.
      The first, Katlyn Hamilton, was recently elected to the office of State Secretary of Georgia's HOSA and it's 7,000 plus HOSA members.
      The U.S. Department of Education actively promotes the success of HOSA in public schools. HOSA's primary mission is to promote career opportunities in the health care industry to our nation's high school students.
      In her third year as a member of HOSA, Hamilton served in 2008 as the Region 6 representative, serving HOSA members in 21 counties. Her election in 2009 means she will travel to this year's national convention in Nashville, Tenn.
      In addition to recording the business of the state executive committee and working with the state HOSA ‘E-Magazine,' she will record all that transpires at the convention.
      The second student, Megan Lanier, is in her first year as a member of the FCCLA. There are some 220,000 members of the FCCLA in approximately 7,000 chapters across the nation.
      FCCLA chapters focus on teen pregnancy, family relationships, alcohol and drug abus, and future career possibilities. Lanier has worked all year in SEB's Pre-K Program as part of her course-work.
      She competed first at the regional and then at the state levels of FCCLA competitions in Early Childhood Education.
      These she won easily. In both of these competitions, Lanier had to assemble a box of teaching aids, prepare a lesson plan, and then teach a class for a panel of judges. The regional theme was "A Salute to Red, White, and Blue", and the state theme was "Going Green."
      At state she helped her "students" assemble a "Recyclable Photo Collage," wowing the judges, who chose her over her 15 other competitors. Her victories propelled her into the national FCCLA competitions, also to be held in Nashville. Her qualifying is a first for the Southeast Bulloch FCCLA program.
      The third student is Valerie Noles, who has been a member of the FFA for four years. She served this year as president of both the Southeast Bulloch FFA chapter as well as for all of Area 4.
      Noles just won election as state secretary for the Georgia FFA, a position sought by 22 other candidates. In her new role, she will attend the Presidents Conference of the FFA in Washington, D.C., in July.
      In October, she will attend the National FFA convention in Indianapolis, where she will serve as a delegate from Georgia in the election of National FFA officers.
      A senior, Noles plans to attend Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, where she will join last year's state FFA vice-president Jarrod Creasey, who graduated from SEB last year. Her plan is to become an agricultural education teacher.
Southeast Bulloch principal Joni Walker-Seier heaped praise on each student:
      "Katlyn is an excellent student and an effective leader; Megan is a quiet girl who leads by example. You couldn't ask for a nicer teenager; and Valerie just exudes warmth. She is a model student who willing to serve anywhere she is needed at any time."

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