The 2019 International Leadership Conference (ILC) of HOSA-Future Health Professionals (formerly Health Occupations Students of America) was held June 19-22 at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Florida.

Cary Academy had two students who qualified to represent North Carolina at the conference after placing in the Top 3 in the state at the State Leadership Conference (SLC) in Charlotte in March: Liya Chen (Class of 2019), who placed 3^rd at the SLC in Pharmacology and Eric Wang (Class of 2020) who placed 1^st in Epidemiology.

At the conclusion of the 2019 ILC, Eric Wang was awarded 1^st place in Epidemiology of all secondary students worldwide!  This is a phenomenal accomplishment and a HOSA first for Cary Academy!

According to HOSA advisor, Troy Weaver, Liya invested tremendous preparation for her competitive exam and will now take her knowledge to UNC-Chapel Hill, where she was admitted to their competitive pharmacy program!

Over Memorial Day weekend, in May, Speech and Debate traveled to Milwaukee, Wisconsin for the National Catholic Forensic League Championships, where Alex Lim (Class of 2022) took 4th overall, nationally, in Declamation Speaking, out of approximately 250 students who won a place at the tournament. Alex delivered a speech: “What I Learned from 100 Days of Rejection” by Jia Jiang.  Alex, a ninth grader, interpreted the speech incorporating humor, a couple of funny characters and an important message about why we should all embrace rejection to help us grow.  Declamation doesn’t ask the competitors to copy or mimic the original speaker, but instead to take a new spin on it and interpret the words for meaning and clarity.

Will Aarons (Class of 2020) also broke to Double Octos in Lincoln Douglas Debate.  Colin Zhu (Class of 2020), Georgia Moorhead (Class of 2021) and Han Zhang (Class of 2021) came very close to breaking in Debate, and Sydney Tai (Class of 2022) was close to breaking in Declamation.