Five Brownwood High School students traveled to the State HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America) competition in San Antonio, Texas, March 29th, 30th, and April 1st. Lizette Lopez, Candace Rodriguez, Steven Arcenaux, Leanna Johnson, and Taelor Eagloski competed in dental spelling and healthcare current events.

Testing against an estimated 1100 other competitors in the Healthcare Current Events category, Leanna Johnson is one of 112 from the state who qualified for the National competition in Florida June 19th through the 23rd.

“On the HOSA website there is a link to the Kaiser Permanente Healthcare issues. I had to study articles from a certain time period that covered healthcare issues from all over the country,” said Johnson. “On the state test it was all multiple-choice with one essay question used as a tie-breaker.”

Johnson, a senior at Brownwood High School, added that she enjoys HOSA because of the many opportunities that it can provide.

“There are so many things we can study and take tests in to compete, and it can open up a lot of doors to careers in the future.”

“We are very proud of all of our competitors,” said BHS Health Science teacher, Annalyn Deen. “We are very excited that Leanna is the very first Brownwood High School student to make it to the national level in HOSA. We are a young program, only in our second year, and to already have one student make it to Nationals is outstanding.”

Pictured at top: Leanna Johnson, a BHS senior and national HOSA qualifier, holds her State Finalist ribbon from the state competition.

Pictured above are BHS State HOSA Competitors: (From left) Lizette Lopez, Candace Rodriguez, Steven Arcenaux, Leanna Johnson, and Taelor Eagloski.