Sikeston girl places in national FBLA

Standard Democrat

SIKESTON, Mo. -- Tara Shoemaker is going to have an exciting start to the school year. She returns to Sikeston Senior High Aug. 15 not only as a senior and vice president of Future Business Leaders of America, but as a national winner.

The 17-year-old placed 10th in the nation in Word Processing I during a Future Business Leaders of America National Leadership Conference conducted June 29-July 2 at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville.

The award was part of a comprehensive competitive program sponsored annually by the Future Business Leaders of America-Phi Beta Lambda, Inc.

Individuals, state teams and local FBLA chapters are encouraged to compete in any of nearly 40 different events representing a wide range of activities and the business and leadership development focus of FBLA-PBL.

To get there, she had to compete against at least 10 other schools from the area at the District 15 Leadership Conference in February in Cape Girardeau where she won first place.

The top two students in each event went on to the state competition in April in Columbia, where she competed against at least 50 other students from the area.

The top two at the state level continued on to the national event, which is where Shoemaker found herself - despite the odds.

"Here at our school we did a computerized test," said Shoemaker. "They just sent us memos, letters, letterheads and things for us to type up on the computer and we had to print that out. When we actually went to the conference we had a written test so we had two tests in all. It was just time consuming, they weren't that difficult. In state I ended up getting third. I was happy but since third doesn't qualify you to go to nationals I was kind of disappointed."

But Shoemaker's luck was about to change. Two weeks later she received word that one of the students who was going to nationals had dropped out which meant the Sikeston High School student would soon be on her way.

"I was excited," Shoemaker said. "The test at nationals was the exact same but it just had different questions. It was actually very hard, I didn't think I did good at all. I had been out of school for like a month and hadn't done anything to do with computers and I had forgotten a lot of stuff."

The Word Processing I test consisted of a performance test worth 85 percent of the score and a written test worth 15 percent.

"For the performance part of the test, the student is given an hour to format and type as many as 10 documents, which may include letters, memos, tables, reports, agendas, announcements, etc.," explained Chris Spurlock, FBLA adviser. "Of course, everything has to be mailable so, if there is one misspelled word, typographical error, formatting error or error in following directions, the document is given zero points. This part is given at the school in the computer lab. The written test is given at the site of the leadership conference.

"In order to do well on these tests, you have to be a fast typist and you have to know exactly how to format the documents," Spurlock explained. "Tara told me she finished at least eight of the documents each time."

The top 10 finalists at the competition were called back stage, none of them knowing what place they had won. When they called Shoemaker's name on stage, she was thrilled to say the least.

"I was very very excited. The whole time we were out we had to sit with each of our states out in the big ballroom and I was thinking I don't really care if I get anything, I'm just glad I made it this far. Then when I got to go up on stage I didn't really care what place I got, they had these big TVs on each side of the stage and I just did not want to be on the TV," she laughed.

She's not the only one still reeling from the excitement. It's reportedly been a few years since a student from Sikeston Public Schools has made it this far.

"There are no words to explain how proud I am of Tara," said Spurlock, "It is the most wonderful feeling as a teacher to see your student so happy and proud of what they've accomplished. Most of the winners will tell you how surprised they were when their name was called out, but I will tell you their advisers knew they could do it from the very beginning. Every student has the potential to shine like Tara has, but they have to take the chance, be self-motivated, and get involved."

Spurlock described Shoemaker as being diligent, a quick-learner, self-motivated, having a good attitude toward peers and faculty, organized, conscientious and a hard worker.

"I never had to push Tara to study or practice, she took it upon herself and worked very hard," Spurlock said. "I have been an FBLA adviser for nine years now and I can tell when a student possesses the qualities it takes to make it to this level in FBLA."