Olivia and Alaina Spurgeon are already set for a big summer.

The Montgomery County sisters plan to go to Florida twice. The first time they will go to the Sunshine State will be in early July, when they participate in the FCCLA (Family, Career and Community Leaders of America) National Leadership Conference.

Olivia and Alaina earned berths to the FCCLA nationals by placing first in their respective projects at the FCCLA state competition, which was held at the Lake of the Ozarks on March 16-18. Olivia, who is a sophomore at Montgomery County High School, placed first in interpersonal communication. Alaina, who is a seventh-grade student, finished first in her professional presentation project, which is called “Invest In Your Health, Invest In Yourself.”

The sisters will be among nine R-II students who will be at FCCLA nationals, which start on July 5 and end on July 9. Alyssa Davis, Aurora Gibson, Brady Falloon, Ethan Hogue and Ava Rhodes from the middle school and Mariah Fish and Cohen Beattie from the high school are also heading south.

Later in July, Olivia and Alaina will head back to Florida for a family vacation.

“Florida is my favorite place to go,” Alaina said.

On March 22, the MCMS FCCLA group held a bake and BBQ sale to help raise money for the Orlando trip. The goal is at least $8,000.

Ava, who placed first in her career investigation project at state competition, said she is looking forward to her first trip to Florida.

“It’s really exciting,” the eighth-grade student said. “My cousin is always down there because she does competitive cheer.”

Alyssa and Aurora, both eighth-grade students, clinched a berth to nationals by placing first for their chapter service project called “Coffee Cart for a Cause,” which allows them to sell items to raise money to help out families with children of special needs.

“It’s a really good project,” Aurora said. “We love it.”

Brady and Ethan are heading to Florida after coming in first for their Murder Mystery Dinner project. The Murder Mystery Dinner was a play the seventh-grade students created earlier this year. It was held on March 1 at the MCMS multipurpose room.

MCMS had 17 students in state competition and 14 of them finished in the top five. All of them qualified for state by earning gold honors at the Region V STAR Events contest on Jan. 27 at Mark Twain High School.

Alaina’s project was a presentation that challenged elementary students to improve their health. Alaina said she was thrilled to qualify for FCCLA nationals for the first time.

“It means a lot to me,” she said. “It was a challenging project.”

Olivia Spurgeon won a state championship after making a presentation about the importance of positive communication in her project with her cross country team. She competed in cross country with the Wildcats the last two years.

Beattie finished first in state for his professional presentation about the amount of sugar in each person’s diets. Fish placed second in state for her FCCLA Reading Challenge project.

Beattie, Fish and Olivia Spurgeon qualified for state by earning gold honors in regional competition.