Wilcox High Students Participate in Statewide FHA-HERO Competition

Chef Daniel Arias, a culinary arts teacher at Wilcox High School, is proud of all of his students who competed in this year’s statewide competition hosted by FHA-HERO in Ontario from April 19^th -23^rd. FHA-HERO stands for Future Homemakers of America- Home Economics Related Occupations.

A couple of Arias’ students were recognized in their competition categories. Sierra Boyanich and Claire Park, both freshmen, won first place in the nutrition education challenge.

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“We won $50 each, and we received a trophy and a plaque,” Park says. “For our project, we featured a diet for preventing Alzheimer’s disease. We presented about how important it is to have food with legumes and food with Omega-3.”

“[While working on this project with Claire], I learned how important it is for older people to stay healthy,” says Boyanich, who might be interested in pursuing a career in nutrition someday. “I learned that even I need to stay healthy at this age. You can get this disease when you’re younger, even though it’s really rare.”

Cathy Rubin, fashion program coordinator and home economics teacher at Wilcox, shares that her student, Calista Huynh, won first place in the apparel construction challenge in the junior division for 7th to 9th graders.

“My student made a hat that has ears and the long sides come down two feet with paw print applicants,” Rubin says. “She made a new hat at the state competition with the same pattern as the hat she made for the regional competition. She won a sewing machine, a $100 cash prize, and a lovely trophy.”

“Doing this event has taught me that fashion is a very hard career to pursue, even though I won first place,” says Huynh, a freshman. “At the beginning of the year, I didn’t know how to sew. I didn’t even know how to thread a needle. I really wanted to get more into fashion, and since I started Ms. Rubin’s class, I learned so much.”

Rubin and the students in her fashion program have been busy preparing for their 7th annual fashion design show. According to Rubin, students will showcase items they made in her sewing class; some were required items and others were items students made by choice.

“It’s all student-made projects with quite a variety, from boxer shorts to t-shirts, baby items, formal dresses, skirts, tote bags and almost everything else you could think of,” Rubin says. “We have a couple of doggie couture items; one student made dog sweaters out of fleece fabric. We have boxer shorts made out of sun prints. We have high-low hem skirts. We have no baby clothes, but we have shopping cart covers that babies can sit on. A lot of my students have little brothers or sisters or friends with babies, and it’s really cute to see what they come up with for the babies.”

Fashion Takes Off, the fashion show, will take place on Thursday, May 16th at 7 p.m. at the Mission City Center for the Performing Arts, located at 3250 Monroe Street. Admission is free.