On March 21st, DECA members travelled south to Lincoln to participate in the two day state competition. Here they navigated group projects, collaborated with others and used their critical thinking, ending the year with a total of eight state placements.
Preparation and practice plays a major role at state DECA. In order to compete to her fullest, junior Maddy Moore practiced hard prior to state, helping her secure 1st place in both the Entrepreneurship Team and the Sales Project.
“For state, I dedicated hours to preparing my Sales Project and memorizing my presentation,” Moore said. “In addition, I studied the terms that were likely to appear on the test.”
Each competition at state looked different. There are categories from marketing to hospitality to entrepreneurship. DECA members must be prepared at all times.
“In my Entrepreneurship Team category, we had an hour to take a 100-question test covering entrepreneurship-related terms,” Moore said. Once at state, we received a business prompt and had 30 minutes to present our ideas to the judges, this role play was done twice at state.”
While state DECA was filled with competitions and business role plays, there was still time for fun. State DECA created new friendships and great memories for senior Millie Belik.
“In our free time, when we were not competing, we were able to spend time with friends from other schools and people in our own chapter too,” Belik said. “We were able to do this by going out to eat and hanging out at the DECA dance.”
The DECA state competition brings the high school clubs’ year to an end. But after a successful competition, Moore is given the opportunity to use her skills even more.
“Since I placed at state, I will be competing at Internationals in Orlando this April. Five other members from my chapter will also be competing,” Moore said.
In light of the school’s accomplishment at the state competition, the club is now looking ahead to recognize the achievement.
“After a great performance by our school at state, as a chapter we are hoping to celebrate and do something fun at our end of year club meeting,” Belik said.
