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HOSA - Fun, Health, and Rewards
By J. C. Tilton
Dancing, health, contests, were all part of the weeks activities for local students. This past week the Health Occupations Students of American held their first state convention ever in Dayton. This organization has chapters nationwide and Ohio is now the 45th state to join. Schools from Toledo, Columbus, Dayton, Kent, sent representatives to the inaugural convention, where winners of several of the contests qualified to go to the national convention in Florida.
The Miami Valley Career Technology Center sent students from their health related fields to the convention. Some examples of the student's background were those taking Sports Medicine, Biotechnology, and Nursing career instruction. The purpose of HOSA is to generate leadership in the healthcare field among students. One excerpt from the HOSA creed seems to sum up this up, “I dedicate my training, my skills, and myself to serve others.”
The first night they listened to featured speaker Bobbie Predmore with Children's Hospital of Dayton. She told of real life experiences during her career. Some of her time was spent taking care of child cancer patients and she had some heart felt stories to tell. After the opening ceremonies were concluded it was time to have fun and the teenagers danced, even doing some line dancing. The theme for this first convention was fittingly - pioneers. So the line dancing matched the Western theme.
Saturday it was back to work, a day of testing and competitions. Since winners and high scorers qualified to the nationals, there was some intensity. Their was a wide range of contests: Medical photography(yours truly was a judge), poster drawing, debate teams, medical reading, sports medicine, dental assisting, and speech contests to name a few. Judges were local adults from a variety of backgrounds, doctors, nurses, teachers, graphic artists, etc.
There were some local winners - Megan Millikin of Dixie won the Poster drawing contest. Students had to design a poster within a time limit on a topic unknown to them until the start of the clock. Rachel Moore(Dixie) and Chelsea Tilton(TVS) were on the first place biotechnology debate team. Going in the team did not know what they would be debating about. The subject turned out to be whether or not the US is prepared for a wide spread medical disaster, the team debated that no the US is not prepared. Rachel(communications) and Chelsea(treasurer) are also state officers for HOSA.
Of course things did not go off with a few problems. But the students improvised. There was time to fill in after lunch and the gang organized another dance and got everyone involved. It was fun to see the students from various schools getting together and having a good time. Plus, the dancing helped shake off that after lunch slow down. And later in the program, there was a delay getting the scores and the vice president, Travis Rotterman, of Butler did a little improv and had an open mike for some jokes to fill in the time. After it all ended the officers got to carry out their final duties, cleanup of the convention site. Another learning experience for the students - it's not all glory at the top! Comments: email: Chris Tilton
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