MEMBERS OF KELLY FHA WILL COMPETE AT STATE THIS WEEK

BENTON -- Members of the Kelly High School Future Homemakers of America (FHA) will compete at the FHA/HERO state leadership conference this week in Columbia.

The conference will run from Tuesday through Friday. Some 1,200 delegates will be in attendance. Thirty Kelly students will attend the conference, with 24 competing.

Students practiced their presentations on two controversial teenage issues suicide and abortion before members of the Benton Community Homemakers Club as well as 35 parents and other club members last week.

Megan Fitzpatrick, a freshman, spoke on abortion, pointing to a recent national survey that showed 89 percent of those polled favored abortion restrictions. She said that abortion affects not just teenagers, but all ages.

Mary Richards, a sophomore, told the audience that suicide, too, affects both young and old. She said 28,000 people in the U.S. died last year as a result of suicide; it's the 10th major cause of death in the U.S.

As part of the meeting with the Benton homemakers, volunteer action members Susan Housman and Tina Smith, both juniors, led the homemakers and 12 Kelly elementary students in a school project. Flowers were planted around the elementary marquee.