Thirty-Three Students Qualify for International DECA

The Kansas State DECA competition was held from March 3-5 at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan and included over 1000 kids from DECA chapters across the state. Out of the 145 juniors and seniors attending the competition, 33 earned a spot for the International competition this spring.

East juniors and seniors in the DECA program competed in individual series or team decision-making events. These events include an exam over different facets of business, such as hospitality, business ethics and marketing, and a role play in which students are given a prompt relating to their specific event and are then given time to brainstorm ideas and prep before explaining their ideas in front of a judge.

Seniors must also compete in a project event, where they create a realistic marketing or business plan and present it in front of a judge. The Marketing Research class is used for these students to spend first through third quarter writing their research papers and preparing visuals for their presentations at State.

“We have been working on our projects since the first day of school so it was a really fun experience presenting our project that we started in August,” senior Henry Mahaffy said. “The project felt really realistic and like something I could do later in my life for a career.”

Students who place in the top three within their series events or top two within their project events qualify for DECA’S High School International Career Development Conference. The conference, which will be held from April 27-30, will be in Orlando, Fla.

“I’m excited to be going back to internationals this year,” senior Katie Garverick said. “I actually [qualified in two events], but I’m going for my project. It’s super rewarding to see all my partner’s and my hard work to create the project paying off.”

East’s two new DECA State Officers, juniors Greta Horton and Ellie Phillips, will be joining the 33 other students competing on the trip and will attend training sessions during the conference.

According to Rasmussen, the Kansas State DECA competition has been held in the Kansas City area for each of the 24 years that she has attended the competition with students. The change in location added extra stress for Rasmussen as bad weather caused the bus to push back their departure time — making the group miss the opening ceremony — as well as having to deal with students needing to leave the competition due to conflicts or stress from missing too much school.