Young leader ‘Heaps’ her success on community, assumes leadership

A local student continues to make Converse County and Glenrock proud.

Haylee Heaps has been elected as a state officer and vice president of Wyoming Community Service for the Family, Career and Community Leaders of America, otherwise known as the FCCLA.  

As a Glenrock High School junior, Heaps is already one of the community’s leaders when it comes to community service.

She’s been a member of the FCCLA since the seventh-grade, but didn’t start actively participating until her freshman year of high school, when she fell in love with the process.

“I started going to meetings and getting more involved,” Heaps said. “I decided to go to fall conference and when I saw what the district and state officers did I fell in love with it.

“Helping people get to where they need to be and helping my community is something I love.”

Heaps decided to run for state officer her freshman year but wasn’t elected by the two-thirds majority needed, but she didn’t quit. The next year she ran for district officer and was elected. Ever since she’s been planning and organizing events, and giving back to the community.

“She’s kept us so active,” Glenrock FCCLA Advisor Candace Stoll said.

“We’ve done activities in the elementary building like trick or treat safety, we have worked with needy kids and we do kindness week with veterans and middle school students where they make art and go out to eat with our veterans. Community service is her niche,” Stoll said.

Heaps has also planned and organized events at the Glenrock Senior Center where students have lunch and participate in other activities with the senior citizens. They’d planned a prom for the seniors May 1 of this year, filled with music from their high school years, but unfortunately it had to be cancelled due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

She said she just notices things the community needs and plans the events from there.

“Our adopt a highway started because when you go out on the interstate, you see how much trash is out there and we want to keep our community looking nice. Our senior center, we thought it would be nice to integrate our older members into the community and our kids coming into the real world.

“We want our kids to stay safe while still having fun, so we hold our trick and treat safety event. We go down to Denver Children’s Hospital and it allows us to meet so many amazing kids that are fighting for their lives. It makes a huge difference for us and the kids,” Heaps said.

All of this hard work was noticed by those in charge of voting for FCCLA state officers, leading to Heaps’ second attempt at being elected to be successful.

It is a thorough process. Each prospective state officer must fill out an application which includes three recommendations who aren’t their advisor, followed by speeches delivered at the state conference in Cheyenne.

Since the state conference was cancelled this year, Heaps had to do the speeches in an unauthentic environment, recording them online then submitting them to the election committee. Competitions and a knowledge test about the organization are also part of the process.

Along with the new position comes new responsibilities.

“Our main responsibility (as district officer) was holding the fall conference,” Heaps said. “When the state conference comes around you help with workshops. I held one on leadership because that’s one of my strengths. Now that I’m a state officer I’ll have to introduce my community service project for the year at the fall conference. Then in the spring I will run a spring conference, as well as go down and speak with state legislators.”

The FCCLA should feel lucky to have someone like Heaps, Stoll said.

“It’s just amazing for her. The FCCLA and State of Wyoming should feel very fortunate to have an officer with her leadership qualities.

“She comes up with so many great ideas, she is a real go-getter in the community. I feel the FCCLA is fortunate to have her and put her in the position she did because she is really outstanding."