Jaylynn Zerr is the new Family, Career and Community Leaders of America president for Missouri Region 4.

All it took was a 90-second speech to help her get elected.

The Montgomery County sophomore was promoted to president during a FCCLA Region 4 officer election ceremony on Jan. 24 at MCHS. Last year, Zerr served as vice president for the organization, which addresses important personal, work and societal issues through family and consumer sciences education.

“It means a lot that I have enough leadership and people see me as a good enough candidate for president,” Zerr said.

Zerr will serve as president for the rest of the school year and for the 2022-23 school year. She leads an officer team that includes secretary Cloey Palmer and treasurer Sophia McWilliams. Palmer and McWilliams are from New Bloomfield.

Region 4 serves Montgomery, Ralls, Pike, St. Charles, Lincoln, Warren, Callaway, Audrain and Boone counties.

To get elected as president, Zerr had to present a 90-second speech about how FCCLA has helped make her time count in school.

“I talked about how FCCLA has helped me and all of the skills that I learned from it like leadership and my ability to work with others,” Zerr said.

Zerr also scored the highest of the candidates on her FCCLA knowledge test and successfully answered her situation question in front of the Region 4 delegation.

“All of the voters voted on who they see fit as the best president and I was the one that got selected for that,” Zerr said. “It definitely means a lot because I’m only a sophomore.”

After Zerr was elected president, she got to close out the ceremony. The sophomore said she was thrilled that she was chosen as president at a ceremony that was held at her own school.

“We have a small school, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t do big things,” Zerr said. “There are a bunch of bigger schools in our region. For a small school like us to be able to represent it that much and get the highest office you can, I think that means a lot. It shows that our school is involved in FCCLA. We put in our time and effort into FCCLA.”

Zerr has enjoyed success in the FCCLA since she joined the organization in her freshman year. Last year, Zerr participated in the FCCLA Repurpose and Redesign contest and won numerous honors for her resin jewelry project she made in honor of her late grandfather. In November, Zerr qualified for state competition in the Focus on Children category after winning a top gold award for a project she completed on Nov. 23, when she went to Montgomery City Elementary School and taught preschoolers about the importance of safety on the farm.

Zerr said now that she is president, she will be pretty active with FCCLA for the next several months.

“I know that I have to go to the state conference,” Zerr said. “That is at the end of March. I get to go to that. I may have to work with workshops and stuff. I’m going there to help teach the other members about leadership skills and other things that they can do to better themselves and better the FCCLA. This summer, I’ll get a chance to go to the national convention (in San Diego, Calif.). There, I’ll get to go to workshops and improve my leadership abilities. I’ll get to see a lot of cool things.”