New this year, at least at regionals, was that last year’s FIRST Dean’s List Finalists (if in attendance) presented the certificates for this year’s FDLA Finalists at the Saturday award ceremony.
At Miami Valley, a student was introduced as one of last year’s winners and it was explained that he was handing out the award certificates for this year’s two FDLA awards. At Midwest, unfortunately, nothing was explained and it seemed confusing. I’ve seen on live stream that some regionals had both of last year’s FDLA recipients on the field and they each handed out one FDLA finalist certificate.
As this is a judged award, it felt awkward to have a student handing out the award. Many students are interviewed by the judges, but only 2 may be chosen as Finalists. I would feel awful if someone held a grudge against last year’s winner(s) because their peers thought they somehow influenced the judging decision.
At Miami Valley those of us that judged RCA were sought out to distribute the plaque and trophy to the winning team. But the FDLA judges who also spent much time on interviews did not hand out the awards as in years past.
I just wondered how others felt about this change in presenting the FDLA finalist awards. Did you even notice it was different this year? 