GULF SHORES – Accolades are piling up for students and teachers at Gulf Shores High School as the 2015-16 school year winds down.

Several students in the Health Sciences Academy were named tops in Alabama at a recent leadership conference in Montgomery.

On Friday it was announced the director of that academy, Dale Jernigan, has been named the Alabama Association of Career and Technical Education’s new teacher of the year.

Additionally, a team of students led by Missy Everett and Courtney Blake in the English Department won several awards competing against students from Baldwin and Mobile counties at Faulkner State.

During a presentation at a council meeting on March 14 Jernigan thanked the city for its part in the Health Sciences Academy.

The fire department provides free instructors as well as access to equipment for training, among other things.

“I cannot take credit for this,” Jernigan said. “The fire department sitting here are the ones I want to give credit to and the students because they did the work. The fire department trained them EMR and EMT.

“This is what our city has supported, this is what our city carried out and this is the result. It’s quite amazing. I won’t cry in front of y’all today.”

Principal Ernie Rosado echoed those sentiments.

“These are all big high schools when you hear Hewitt-Trussville, Bob Jones,” Rosado said of the Health and Science competition. “These are huge high schools that have a lot of resources. But we have resources from the city and the students.”

Mayor Pro Tem Carolyn Doughty thanked the educators and students for their hard work representing the city.

“We’re very proud of the students, very proud of you Dale and our own fire department for doing what they do, Dr. Rosado and the whole program that we’ve got going on over there,” Doughty said..

Competing students first had to pass tests at Gulf Shores High School to earn a spot on the team.

“I took 10 students to the Alabama HOSA state competition,” Jernigan said. “They had to pass a test first through me, the biggest obstacle, to show dedication, motivation and to be willing to study on their own. These have to be good students to even be selected to go.”

There were several facets to the competition, including written tests and hands-on exercises for EMT students, public speaking, job seeking skills, dental science, physical therapy and veterinary science.

“They competed in written test first,” Jernigan said. “There were 2,000 contestants there from the state of Alabama. The EMTs took a test and went to the second round. The EMTs had a first place winning team and a top six winning team.

Trey Williams and Reed Linam were named the top EMT team in Alabama and Zeke Brasher and Kori Harrell’s team placed sixth.

John Smith, named last month as a Merit Scholarship finalist, was tops in the state in Medical Math.

Other students who attended were Olivia Breland who was sixth in job seeking skills, Rachel Thompson competed in Physical Therapy, Kayleigh Snow in Dental Science, Kyle Bell in Veterinary Science and Lauren Bradford in Prepared Speaking.

Everett and Blake brought 11 students to the literary competition at Faulkner.

“We had one of the smallest groups there and we competed in six of the seven categories,” Everett said. “Of those six we placed in all six categories. Of those six we actually placed in three of those were first-place finishers. They did a fantastic job.”

First place finishers were Dom Marzullo in American Literature, Keeaira Bagby in Send-in Short Story competition and Christian Mixon in Send-in Poetry competition. Bagby also placed third in Creative Writing.

Others placing in the show included Zachary Randel who was third in Poetry Recitation and Nathan Donald who was third in English Literature. Others on the team were Rose Lewis, Megan Bown, Kaelyn Pipkins, Lindsay Royals, Jordan Higgs and Collin Smith.

Marzullo and Donald were offered full scholarships to Faulkner after their showings at the competition.

“We’ve got to get our students ready for careers and whatever they want to do,” Rosado said.