Addie Wood’s career goals inspired by parents

Addie Wood, of Dow City, a 2021 graduate of Boyer Valley, is a member of a first-place, prize-winning team in a national video and digital poster contest designed to promote the value of family and consumer sciences (FCS) programs.

The contest was hosted by the National Partnership to Recruit, Prepare and Support FCS educators; it was facilitated by the Family and Consumer Sciences Education Association (FCSEA).

Another purpose of the public service announcement contest was to address the critical need for FCS educators.

Addie is on track to be one of those educators. The Wayne State College junior is majoring in FCS education. Once she graduates, she will have a middle school and high school FCS education degree and a work-based learning endorsement.

Addie has great mentors that influenced her to pursue her career. Her mother, Julie, is the FCS instructor at Denison High School, and her father, Chris, is the industrial technology and art teacher for the Charter Oak-Ute elementary and middle schools.

Both parents are Wayne State College graduates.

Addie said her mom inspired her to pursue an FCS education degree.

“She was a big part of it. I’ve always cooked with her growing up. And as my dad is also a teacher, I just kind of knew that I wanted to be at a school and get to coach and be a teacher,” she said.

“I really love cooking with my mom and baking with her and decided that was the field I wanted to go into,” she added.

The purpose of the contest was to create an original video or digital poster to deliver information about the value and impact of family and consumer sciences education for individuals, schools, and/or communities. The contest was open to FCS students (middle, secondary, post-secondary, or graduate level) and FCS professionals, according to the FCSEA website.

The Wayne State PSA video was produced by the college’s Association of Family and Consumer Sciences Professionals (AFCSP) club. AFCSP helps other students majoring in FCS to connect with each other and learn more about what FCS is. The group also gives students opportunities for expanding connections outside the college.

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Other club members involved in the video production are Emma Kirk of Missouri Valley, Bridget Vaith of South Dakota, and Doe Carder, Reggie Lawson, Harleigh Claussen, Paige Nolan, Stacy Frisch and Evan Landauer, all of Nebraska.

Addie is one of the speakers in the video, which can be viewed at this link: https://www.fcsed.net/fcs-educator-day/psa-contest.

Addie’s part is about 28 seconds into the video. She is in the second group of students to speak, and her line is “to be a role model for any student.” Spoken lines in the first part of the video answer the question “Why FCS?” Lines in the second part of the video answer the question “Why FCS Education?”

“The president of the AFCSP club brought the script to one of our meetings and said we could pick whatever we wanted to say or come up with our own saying,” Addie explained.

“We were all really excited that we won first place,” she added. “We talked about it in some of our FCS classes because our professor is also our advisor. We thought it was cool that we had won.

“We really enjoyed looking at other people’s submissions,” Addie continued. “It really inspired us seeing the little kids involved (in the videos) and the fact that they just really enjoy FCS and what they’re learning.”

First place also came with a $500 prize, which will go to the club.

In the future, Addie plans to teach at a school close to home. She said she would prefer to teach FCS at a middle school but would be fine teaching FCS at the high school level as well.

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