Submitted by Dottie Arsenault and J. Flora
The Bedford High School DECA chapter achieved further success this year at the Massachusetts State Conference this year held at the Copley Marriott in Boston March 12-14. The event lasted for three days and consisted of various competitive events in Marketing, Finance, Entrepreneurship, Hospitality and Management. Promptly after the arrival of all of the competitors and their advisors Thursday night, dinner was served followed by the completion of a business, marketing, or finance knowledge based test. Each individual or team had to complete a one-hundred question multiple-choice test in their specific category. The grade they received on this test was included in their overall final placement in the competition, in addition to judges compiled scoring.
After completing the tests, students gathered in the Grand Ballroom where the opening ceremony was held with over 2100 other Massachusetts high school district winners.
During the opening ceremony, Joe Andruzzi spoke about his time as a New England Patriots player as well as his personal battle with non-Hodgkin’s Burkitt’s lymphoma and delivered some powerful inspirational messages.
The following day the students woke up bright and early to begin their role-plays or presentations in front of judges. Those competing in individual or team events completed two role-plays throughout the day. The students were given 10 minutes as individual competitors or 30 minutes if on a team to review their role-play and to create a proposed solution. After the 30 minutes were up, the students presented their proposal to a judge for up to ten minutes. This presentation was also followed up by several questions from the judge about their presentation.
In addition to the role-play events, Bedford DECA had two groups participating in written event projects. For a written event, the student or team must research a topic related to business, marketing, or finance on their own time and create a research paper or an exhibit to present to the judges at the DECA competition.
The final style of competition available for students to compete in is the Quiz Bowl. This year Bedford had a Quiz Bowl team with four members. At the state conference the Quiz Bowl team competes against another town’s team and if they win they go on to the next round. This was the first year Bedford had a Quiz Bowl team compete at the state level.
Throughout all day Friday, several leadership workshops were available to the students to opt to participate in while they were not competing.
Saturday morning the closing ceremony was held and the winners were announced for who would qualify for the national competition (top four in each category) to be held in Florida this April.
This year the team of Brendan Flynn and Josh Berenson won for the Team Financial Services Event. Juwon Jeon, who competed individually in the Food Marketing Series Event took home the second place, all were granted a spot in the national competition. Austin Leonard and Lucas Ou competing for Buying and Merchandising Team Event were given honorable mention plaques (5th place) in the competition.
Heading to DECA’s National Competition!
Overall it was a very successful year for Bedford DECA and we thank all those who supported our club this year!
Jeon, Ou, Leonard and Berenson will be heading to Orlando April 24-29 to compete at the National International Career Development Conference. The conference is five-day event that is packed with competitions, leadership seminars and activities. The conference will have 11,000 students, 2000 advisors and 1000 judges in attendance.
This is Bedford’s first time at the conference. If you would like to help contribute to support the financial burden on the team you can go to https://www.gofundme.com/BHSDECA and support the kids!
We appreciate any amount as we have a very short time to raise the necessary funds. Thank you Bedford!
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