APS Student Successes HOSA on the Road to Nationals

At last month's Regular Board Meeting, Alamogordo High School's Future Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) advisor, Mr. Russel Hortilano, highlighted the outstanding achievements of the Alamogordo High School HOSA chapter at the 2025 NM HOSA Future Health Professionals State Leadership Conference held in April. 

Students participated in various competitive events ranging from Medical Innovation & Clinical Science to CERT Skills, speaking, and health education, where several students placed in the top five statewide and nine in the top three, allowing the team to advance to the HOSA-Future Health Professionals International Leadership Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, this month of June 2025.

Mr. Hortilano recognized and expressed gratitude to the other HOSA advisors, Darlene Mellen, Pede Casing, and Mary Cajella, for their dedication to mentoring, guiding, and preparing students for success.  

Congratulations to the AHS HOSA chapter, and best of luck at the International Leadership Conference. 

HOSA-Future Health Professionals is a national student organization recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and the Health Science Education Division of ACTE. HOSA’s two-fold mission is to promote career opportunities in the health care industry and to enhance the delivery of quality health care to all people. HOSA’s goal is to encourage all health occupations instructors and students to join and be actively involved in the HSE-HOSA Partnership

One of the principles of our media organization, Chris Edwards, when he was in high school he went to HOSA National twice and was the organizations state president for the state of Tennessee. During that time he served also on the Governors Commission for Vocational Technical Education under Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander at the time who eventually became a Senator and the United State Secretary of Education. HOSA is an important and impactful program in preparing leaders for a future in health care, health care advocacy or a political career in the healthcare field.

Good job APS and AHS in offering this program and congratulations to each Alamogordo High School student that participated and participates in this important program.

At this month's Regular School Board meeting, Abigail Anderson was recognized for her service to the board this school year as the AHS Student Ex Officio.

Abigail did an amazing job sharing information about Alamogordo High School and our 3 middle schools to the board and the community. Thank you, Abigail, for your service to Alamogordo Public Schools. We wish you the best in all your future endeavors and just maybe you learned a bit about the politics of public schools and will grow to run for school board or other public office in the future?

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