Last Tuesday, 10 students from Lafayette qualified for the National Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) competition in California.

The Lafayette HOSA team competed at the State competition in one of the 54 different categories with topics about medical knowledge. Students who qualified had to get either third place or higher in their category to qualify for the national competition in June.

This was Lafayette’s first time ever at a HOSA competition, as the club only started the branch at Lafayette last year.

HOSA leader Jennifer Keillor said, “I’m so proud of all the students. They worked hard and had fun, which is what it’s all about.”

The competition was held at Missouri S&T in Rolla, MO on March 24. Around 865 students from all over Missouri competed in the State competition. Lafayette had 56 students compete in the array of different subjects.

There were six different categories of types of events: Health Science, Health Profession, Emergency Preparedness, Leadership, Teamwork, and Recognition.

Students were only allowed to compete in one event, so they have been focusing their time on their topics since the beginning of August. The club met once a month in the first semester then moved to twice a month as the state competition got closer.

“Students really worked at their own pace, depending on their event and the difficulty of it,” Keillor said.

Juniors Jenny Kohl and Carly Emamjomeh placed third in Health Career Poster with their presentation over Occupational Therapy in the category of Health Professions. They presented their project over the career to a group of judges for a maximum of five minutes.

“In our presentation, we talked about the career, what was included on our poster, how well we knew the career, and why we chose it,” Kohl said. “The judges were pretty intense the whole time. They nodded a lot and didn’t say much besides a little commentary at the end.”

After seeing all of the projects, the judges decided on the best and gave out medals to the top three projects overall.

“We were shocked. We were laughing. [We] definitely weren’t expecting that at all,” Kohl said. “Now we have to prepare for the national competition. I don’t know if we’re gonna make a new project or keep ours, but I know we’ll research more to improve.”

All 10 of the students who placed will move on to the National HOSA competition in Anaheim, California in June. Listed below is the students, their placing, and the category they won in:

Carly Emamjomeh and Jenny Kohl (Juniors):  3rd place in Health Career Poster (Occupational Therapy)

Jessica Tremper and Wendy Han (Juniors):  3rd place Health Education

Anika Pulumati (Freshman):  3rd place Healthy Lifestyle

Erica Mange (Senior): 3rd place Epidemiology

Beesan Daoud (Junior):  2nd place Medical Photography

Claire Maesaka (Senior):  2nd place Clinical Specialty (Audiology)

Lina Qi (Freshman): 2nd place Medical Law and Ethics

Heather Kellenberger (Senior):  2nd place Medical Terminology