Each Thursday, upwards of thirty students pack room M-180 or the EPI Center. Some talk loudly, some sit quietly on their phones, and some just relax. Some are sophomores, some are juniors, and some are seniors.
All await the events of the meeting, whether it be a lecture by the CEO and founder of Skinny Pop, an economics talk led by Mr. Kansler, or a role play led by Mr. Bollweg.
Welcome to New Trier’s business club, DECA, (Distributive Education Clubs of America). The club began in 1946 as an international business program comprised of both collegiate and high school members. Since then it has only grown, especially at New Trier.
The students who make up DECA come from different backgrounds and interests, which has caused steady growth, according to faculty sponsor Melissa Duffy, “We are seeing sixty students a week now. We actually had to move from our old meeting room to the EPI Center to accommodate everyone. We have seen steady growth for the past five years.”
Executive officer Corey Schwartz adds, “This is the first year we have had to cut people from the state competition because teams are only allowed to bring forty. Up until now forty kids have not wanted to come, but this year I believe we had forty seven, so we had to unfortunately cut some kids.”
What actually attracts participants to DECA? Executive officer Tamara Villalon’s story of coming to DECA is representative of what draws most DECA members.
“After taking the introduction to business class with Mr. Bollweg I wanted to delve further into business and see all the different areas like marketing and finance so I got involved with DECA.”
Most DECA participants would agree that the most exciting part of DECA comes from the intense competition.
There are three main competitions in which New Trier DECA takes part: the area competition, the state competition and the international competition held in Orlando, Florida.
Everyone competes in the state competition, but only the top three individuals or teams from each event have the privilege of competing in the international competition.
Executive officer Clay Lesniak is confident in his club’s chances at the state meet, judging by their strong performance at the area competition held in Rosemont this past weekend.
“This year as a club, we did the best we have ever done. We had a lot of people medaling, which was great to see. We actually had some first year members medal in their first competition, which is very rare.”
The Trevian DECA side had many contestants finish number one in their event. Tamara Villalon finished first in Exam, role play #1, and overall (Marketing Management). Dylan McGuire finished first in role play #1 (Principles of Marketing). Michelle Buyer finished first in role play #2 (Principles of Marketing). John Haboush finished first in Exam (Sports & Entertainment Marketing). JJ Jaggaard finished first in Exam (Sports & Entertainment Marketing). Nitika Satish finished first in Exam (Buying & Merchandising).
New Trier finished strong in the team events as well. Kerstin Hellstrom and Nikita Satish finished first for Buying and Merchandising Team. Other results for both team and individual rankings are listed below.
With such results, it appears that DECA will be hungry to take on the state competition in Decateur, IL come March.