Throughout March 17 and 19, 2024, Herrin High School Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) went to Springfield, Illinois, to compete at state. After all chapters had competed, Herrin placed in the top three three different times. Elizabeth Freeman (10) and Emma Chandley’s (10) health career display placed second. Skyler Blakey (10), Jayden Rudder (10), Sydney McCree (10), and Brooklyn Riggs (10) placed first in their public health presentation. Finally, Natalie Meneese (12) placed second in life support skills.
Even though all these competitors have a passion for and skills in the healthcare field, their success wasn’t immediate and there was a great deal of preparation leading up to their performances at state.
“We created a poster board and wrote a five-minute-long oral presentation and me and my partner practiced our speech a lot together and worked on our poster a lot in Ms. Ohms’ room. It was honestly really fun to spend time making the poster board and being crafty and coming up with different ideas to make it stand out,” Freeman said.
Chandley, who teamed up with Freeman to work on a presentation, said that his experience taught her how to work under pressure. “When I was there, we rushed and how to get prepared for our stuff and everything,” she said.
Despite any outside help they could have been given, these students admit that it was their own abilities to study and prepare that helped them, such, Rudder who said “[her] and [her] teammates’ abilities” was what enabled them to perform so well.
Rudder and her teammates, a group of four in total, were able to place first, which secured them a spot at HOSA nationals. Before they could present, the group had to spend ages gathering research and making a presentation. “We practiced our presentation over and over again,” said Riggs. She continued: “Spending time with my group was really enjoyable because we’re all so close and I definitely recommend doing it with people you really like being around. The memorization was pretty di
fficult. Ms. Ohms was definitely a big help, the rest of my group put so much hard work into this.”
McCree, who worked with Riggs and others, said this about preparation and execution of her presentation: “It was mostly stressful but at the same time it was good to learn everything and get all the facts. I kind of enjoyed researching it. The emotional aspect of it was difficult to do because everyone has experience with it, so sometimes it can get a bit emotional to talk about. We were talking about loneliness and isolation, so we all gave a little story that we had at the end.”
Blakey agrees with McCree on the stressful aspects of their presentation, as she said: “There’s a time limit, so we have to do our presentation in nine minutes. We ended up ending on the dot of nine minutes. It was a presentation on loneliness and isolation so we just had to say what it was, how you can help it, how you can prevent it. You definitely have to be creative, quick-thinking (especially with presentations, because if you don’t know what to say, you have to think of something quick), and memorizing stuff and material and information, and time management skills.”
Finally, Meneese was able to place second as she presented on home health care and life support skills, which is the healthcare one would see in a nursing home. Throughout her time at HOSA, she was able to do hands-on exercises, such as CPR. Meneese was also heavily supported by her parents and Ms. Ohms, as they all served to motivate her to keep going. “I’m going to John. A. for nursing,” Meneese said. “That’s why I joined HOSA.” After continuing her education, she plans to become a flight evacuation nurse.
With nations and internationals on the horizon, alongside health careers and classes in the near future, another chapter of the Herrin HOSA’s story begins to close, waving goodbye to seniors like Meneese and seeing a new group, like these sophomore girls, rising to fill the vacancy.
