A project close to the heart of one Cloudland High School student is earning her a lot of recognition as well as a trip to a national competition this summer.

Lakota Oxendine, a senior at Cloudland, recently won the state Health Occupation Students Association competition, earning her a spot in the national HOSA competition in June in Anaheim, Calif.

For the state competition, Oxendine decided to enter the healthy lifestyles category of the competition and take on a subject that she knows a lot about through her own personal experience.

“This year I did my project on healthy lifestyles and how you can control your blood sugar levels with hypoglycemia,” she said.

Hypoglycemia is a condition where a person’s pancreas produces too much insulin, which causes the person’s blood sugar levels to drop. It is a condition that Oxendine knows all to well as she battles it daily.

“I chose that topic because it actually affected me and I felt like I could actually make my life better through it,” she said.

To get ready for the project, Oxendine did a lot of research on her own and she also talked to her nurse practitioner about the condition and how to better manage it.

“We talked a lot about what changes I could make to my diet and activity,” she said. “It was a lot of trial and error.”

And now, Oxendine wants to share what she has learned with others when she heads to the national competition with her presentation on the topic.

“I’m very excited,” she said. “I can’t wait.”

While her high school career will be over in May, Oxendine plans to continue her studies in the field of healthcare.

“I’ve always been interested in medicine but it has just been recently that I decided I wanted to pursue that through nursing,” she said. “I just really like the hands on aspect of nursing.”

After graduating from high school, Oxendine will attend Lincoln Memorial University, located in Harrogate, where she plans to major in nursing.

“I’m really interested in trauma care and labor and delivery,” she said of her plans for her nursing career.

In addition to her work with HOSA, Oxendine has served as the drum major for the Cloudland High School band for the past two years and holds a 3.96 grade point average.

She is the daughter of Billie Oxendine and Paul Verellen and the granddaughter of Doris Oxendine.