Fashion Marketing teacher Mrs. Bolling and her students recently attended the Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA ) state competition in which 11 members competed. Bolling has acted as DECA advisor for the past ten years.

According to Bolling, DECA is a co-curricular club associated with marketing classes where students are given the opportunity to compete with other high school students, network, and ultimately become “future-ready”.

As part of the competition, students were given a time limit to find solutions to business/marketing scenarios, which were then presented to a judge. Seniors Emir Balci and Vickey McCauley were given 30 minutes to prepare, while senior Alysa Brown was given 10 minutes. Balci and McCauley teamed up in the Entrepreneurship category, placing 2nd overall against 63 other teams; Brown went on to place in the top 8 out of 65 other competitors in the Retail Merchandizing category.

The objective overall was to make it to the International Career Development Conference (ICDC) held in Anaheim, California, the last weekend in April, when participants, including McCauley and Balci, will compete in one of DECA’s competitive events to earn the title of “Best in the World”.

According to California DECA, over 22,000 high school students, advisors, businesspeople, and alumni gather during Internationals for several days of “DECA excitement.”

Furthermore, the ICDC competition will include many leadership and career-advancing academies for students and advisors to embrace.

“I feel so proud of them,” Bolling said. “This is the first time since I’ve been a sponsor that we’ve had students place 2nd place.”