Melbourne High

A little extra time off from school was something anyone wouldn’t mind. In this case, media specialist Mrs. Carrie Friday spent the week before Thanksgiving Break at the annual FAME conference that was taking place in Orlando. FAME stood for Florida Association of Media and Education and was a conference that took place for media specialists in Florida every year and Friday had been attending for eight years. “My first FAME conference was my first year as a media specialist back in 2016,” she stated. “I started going because I knew I had so much to learn and school librarians are almost always the only people on their campus that could do that.”

The conference lasted three days, with each individual day being action-packed. “This year at the conference I led a full day training for new media specialists, hung out with some really awesome authors, presented two different 45 minute sessions on different topics, attended some sessions as a learner, and got inducted as president-elect,” explained Friday. Although it made for three very long days, she wouldn’t have traded the memories she had made for the world.

This conference had many memorable moments for Friday. “The biggest highlight for me was watching my youngest daughter give a speech and present an award in front of 800 people to a New York Times Best-Selling author. She was so brave and it was a wonderful moment to watch her shine,” she explained. Her oldest daughter had done the same thing a few years earlier, so she was excited that her other daughter could have this unique experience as well. 

Since she had become president-elect, this year’s conference had looked a little different. “I’m the newest president-elect which is a really fancy way of saying I’m president in training. I’ll become president in October of 2025,” stated Friday. This meant that she would be in charge of the next year’s FAME conference. So this year, she was watching the conference with a new perspective.