Students compete at DECA district competition, continue to states

On Friday, December 2, eleven students traveled to Keiser University in Tampa with Stephen Mikell, Upper School Physics and Math teacher and DECA faculty sponsor, to compete in the DECA district competition. According to www.deca.org, DECA has impacted the lives of more than ten million students, educators, school administrators and business professionals since it was founded in 1946.

“DECA provides a remarkable experience in the preparation of emerging leaders and entrepreneurs,” said Mikell. “I am very proud of our students involved.”

Farragut students competed against 615 other teams/students in the Tampa Bay area involved in DECA. The first part of the competition was a 100 question test on principles of marketing, finance, business management, securities and investments. Shawn Simon ‘17, who started the club with the help of Mikell in 2015-16, scored the highest on the test portion out of all competitors. Unfortunately he was not able to attend districts. The second part of the competition is role playing. During districts each team or individual is given a business scenario in their category and they have 30 minutes to come up with a strategic plan and then 15 minutes to present to the judges, who are local men and women in business from the Tampa Bay area.

“DECA is a really good business oriented club to be involved in and helps with your high school resume,” said Trevor Bennati ‘17, who will continue onto states with his team partner Zach Fine ‘17 for the second year in a row. “The club helps build communication skills because they put you in real business scenarios and you have to present your ideas and concepts in front of a group.” Trevor, who said his first college choice is the Naval Academy, plans to study finance or business management. “Zach and I talk about someday doing hedge funds together.”

Students moving on to the State Competition March 2-5, 2017:

• Zach Fine and Trevor Bennati: 1st place in Sports and Entertainment Management (Category was the highest populated and they competed against 40-50 teams)
• Bianca DeSilva: 2nd place in Personal Financial Literacy
• Matthew Hajek and Max Kostyashkin: 3rd place in Business Finance

Students who almost made it:

• Sam Nolin and Chris Hastrup earned 4th in Business Law and Ethics

All participants:

• Trevor Bennati
• Bianca DeSilva
• Zach Fine
• Matt Hajek
• Chris Hastrup
• Max Kostyashkin
• Sam Nolin
• Robalino Fernando
• Yida Shen
• Shawn Simon
• Oscar Xu

Last year the following students went to states Zach Fine, Trevor Bennati, Matthew Hajek, Stephen Mikell, Jr, and Jack Winters.

Please see Mr. Mikell if you are interested in joining DECA.