Tyrone’s Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) Club held their annual end of the year banquet on Wednesday, May 1 at the TAHS cafeteria.

The biggest award of the evening was a $750 scholarship presented to three of the four graduating HOSA seniors by the Tyrone Hospital.

The hospital usually only gives out two scholarships, but because there were three strong applications this year, they decided to award a third $750 scholarship.

Seniors Lasandra Keller, Jayde LaRosa, and Olivia Barr all received this scholarship.

Beth Detrick, the Acting Director of Nursing at Tyrone Hospital handed out the scholarships to the three seniors.

Along with the Tyrone hospital staff who presented the scholarships, Ms. Myers, the Director of Clinical Regions, and Ms. Anna Anna, the acting Chief Executive Officer of the Tyrone Hospital also attended the banquet to recognize the Tyrone students for their contributions to the hospital. 

Several other awards were also given out to the students.

Senior Paige Kephart won the top sales award. Kephart sold the most amount of items from all of the HOSA fundraisers combined.

The next award was given to junior Bri Foy for the most HOSA spirit.

Another award was the Super Duper Helper Award and it was given to both senior Lasandra Keller and sophomore Sarah Hoover by Mrs. Taylor.

There was also a participation basket given to one student. A name was picked from a hat for who won the basket. The names in the hat were entered based on when students helped out for HOSA. The more you helped out, the more your name was added to the hat. The winner of the basket was Lasandra Keller.

During the banquet, Taylor and the officers talked about many of the accomplishments that occurred throughout the year, including the Blood Drives, Christmas and Valentines Day fundraisers, to cleaning up the football fields in the fall.

“There were a lot of events and activities we accomplished this year. The banquet was a way for us to show off what we have done in the group. I am so excited for the upcoming year in HOSA,” said sophomore Hollie Keller.

At the banquet, there was a table with all of the achievements of the year from the students. The seniors’ portfolios of the year were on display for people to view. 

“The banquet showed our parents and other members of the community what we have done this year and all of the hard work we have done,” says Sophomore HOSA member Becca White.

Along with giving out awards and reflecting on this year, Mrs. Taylor also announced the officers for the upcoming school year.

The HOSA president for the 2019-2020 school year is sophomore Hollie Keller. She will replace Elaina Gleason next year. Sophomore Sarah Hoover will be replacing Brianna Foy as vice president. The secretary will be junior Angela Miller, taking over the job that Jayde LaRosa held this year. The treasurer will be Taylor Black, who will take Olivia Barr’s position.

In addition to these four officers, HOSA decided to add a new position to the group for next year. The group has added a historian to the group, and junior Brianna Foy will fill this spot.

“The banquet is always fun. I don’t think people realize all of the stuff you do until you take a minute to look back,” said health technology and HOSA instructor Mrs. Taylor.

The banquet took a lot of preparation on behalf of Mrs. Taylor and Ms. Snyder and the students. The students of HOSA divided into groups to help out with the banquet. The food committee chose out the food at the banquet, and who they wanted to cater. The invitation committee created the pamphlet for the banquet, and the decoration committee spent many weeks buying, designing, and setting up for the banquet. Mrs. Taylor and Ms. Snyder made all of the calls, put in hard hours, helped out with decorations, and bought the supplies for the banquet.

“It was a lot of hard work, but it paid off in the end,” said HOSA assistant instructor Ms. Snyder.