From Monday, February 25th, through Wednesday, February 28th, 28 members of Arrowhead DECA’s chapter will be attending the State Career Development Conference in Lake Geneva, at the Grand Geneva Resort and Spa. 

Students will report to Arrowhead at 1:30 PM for luggage inspection before leaving Arrowhead at 2:00 PM. Students usually arrive back at school around 3-3:30 PM after the long trip.

Some of the students that you would recognize that are going are, Senior Lily Liu, Senior Krrish Patel, Junior Eason Zhang, Senior Jay Haase, Junior Ella Serwin, Junior Kaitlin Menz, Junior Rylie Gagnon, Sophomore Logan Welter, and many more. 

Business teacher and Arrowhead DECA advisor, Steve Melzer said, “State is a great opportunity for DECA students. We have a great group of kids who are going to state this year for DECA, and we are ready to hopefully come home with lots of ICDC qualifiers.”

At the Districts competition on January 6th at Kettle Moraine, if students get first through third, then they automatically qualify for state, and then if a chapter gets a bunch of students who place first through third, so the chapter can double the number of students that go.

Students will compete in two events: one is a project that the qualifying students have worked on, printed out, and made posters out of; and the other is the series test and two roleplays, based on the category students have chosen. Categories range from food marketing to entrepreneurship. 

Students are judged based on their role plays and projects. Students will compete in two role plays out of 100 points for each, and those two scores plus their test scores will be combined. The same thing for the projects, the presentation was out of 100, and then if they had a test with it, those would be combined, otherwise it would just be their project score. Prizes are medals and glass trophies.

Competitor and freshman, Aubrey McGuire said, “I’m excited to go to state. I have my project all set and I’ve been studying for my role plays so I hope that with all my prep, I can qualify for nationals.” 

Nationals for DECA—or as students call it ICDC—is from April 27th through April 30th, located in Anaheim, California. The top six students in projects automatically qualify and the top seven students in role plays automatically qualify for Nationals. 

Typically at nationals, students compete and do fun adventure things and activities. Last year twenty-three students qualified for nationals.

For example, for Arrowhead’s chapter, they will be doing Rodeo Drive, Disneyland, Venice Beach, swimming activities, and more. It’s a jam-packed six-day adventure that any DECA student dreams of qualifying for.

Gagnon said, “I’m pumped for [qualifying for] state actually. I think it’s going to be so much fun and a really great opportunity for me.” 

Students will arrive at the Grand Geneva late Sunday afternoon. Project presentations and the test for the roleplays will be all of Monday. Students will arrive and depart on a bus. 

This is followed by a full morning of roleplays on Tuesday, with the afternoon off for competitors to do as they please. There is a water park in the hotel that the students will be staying at. 

Then, the long-awaited day arrived, the day every competitor waits for the most, is Wednesday, the award session to see who has made it to the national competition. 

McGuire said, “State is going to be fun and exciting. It’s four days in a hotel and I can’t wait. I want to qualify for nationals, so I’m going to work as hard as I can for my goal to qualify for nationals.”