Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA) is a high school and college program for students who are interested in the field of business. DECA prepares students who want to be leaders and entrepreneurs for careers specializing in marketing, finance and management. Although this is what DECA is for, many students do it for the experience or to get involved within the school community.
When you are in DECA, you are given a category which you have to work with.
A handful of our very own Kearsley High School students went to the DECA State Competition, which was in Detroit, Michigan, where two of them were invited to go to Internationals at the end of April. However, if any of the students who were selected to go to Internationals end up dropping out for whatever reason, some of our students would have the opportunity to fill in their spots. They are the runner-ups in this situation.
Seniors, Drake Hollins and Heidi Urban are the two students who are honored to be going to California to represent KHS in the category of School-Based Enterprises.
It was not easy to make it this far. They each had to put in equal amounts of work to be able to get this chance to go to California. This opportunity for them is amazing and their hard work has paid off.
Both of these amazing students had to come together and write a 30-page report detailing the processes they used to run a successful store like marketing, product management, and finding vendors.
In other words, Hollins and Urban had to describe how their store would operate and everything that would happen behind the scenes that you don’t see. They took on the role of managers completing the tasks needed to run the business that people often do not see.
After putting countless hours into DECA for the past few months, when they went to Detroit, they achieved getting the school store state-certified at the highest level, which is gold.
Hollins talks about the emotion he felt when finding out that his group made it to Internationals. “The feeling was a strong sense of pride for ourselves, for our school, and the excitement because it meant we would be representing our school at the international level.”
Urban explains the feeling she had when she found out her group would be going to California. “Obviously the initial excitement of going to California, but also feeling so proud of Drake and I for making it that far and being able to represent the school.”
The opportunities that DECA gives students all around the country are to gain interest and knowledge on different topics surrounding business.
