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Three DECA students advance to nationals

New London High School sent 11 students to Lake Geneva this month to compete in the state DECA competition. They returned home with a total of 11 medals and awards. Zeniff Flores, Mackenzie Steinert and Katie Pence will move on to national competition at the end of April.

Seniors Kit Chaudoir and Beth Denzel competed in team decision making in the Marketing/Buying/Merchandising category. Their role play involved picking products to sell – in this case electric blenders – and doing a promotional system that fit into stores. They incorporated local farmers and had a kiosk in front of the store for designing a recipe. The recipe card provided the ingredients and which aisle to find them in that store. Chaudoir and Denzel medaled in role play.

Senior Mackenzi Steinert has been in DECA four years now. She competed in Accounting Applications and took an economics and finance test. She medaled in role play for operations, where she developed a timeline for a project that wasn’t doing well.

Steinert and DECA President Katie Pence coordinated a public relations project that involved childhood obesity. The program was started at Parkview Elementary and is called “Fitness and Fun”. Children have a club and can follow their interests in running, jump rope, biking, etc. They even held a bike rodeo. The two received a first place and will advance to nationals.

Seniors Katie Pence and Taylor Farrell did Hospitality role play and medaled. They were instructed to market a hotel line after an oil spill had occurred on the coast. This included use of social media.

Juniors Zeniff Flores and Carl Martins did Individual Sports and Entertainment marketing. They also had to role play and take two tests.

Flores applied for state DECA officer while he was at Lake Geneva. For this position, he prepared a platform and DECA vision speech. He is now the new vice president of Business Partnerships for the state of Wisconsin. Along with six other officers, Flores will help with planning and lead DECA in conferences, community service opportunities. “My main focus at state was to memorize my five and three minute speeches for this position,” said Flores.

Junior Matthew Eake and Eric Bollerman medaled in role plays for the Sports and Entertainment Marketing Team in the decision making event.

Their assignment was to pick a new judge for American Idol. Their second role play was Emotional Intelligence with non-profit partners and a minor league baseball team. The students explained how they would keep the team alive after tickets were sold in an unethical manner.

A first for New London, freshman representatives attended the state competition. Jenna Mytton and Cambria Fitzgerald competed in Hospitality Service Management where they executed team decision making. They did role playing to figure out how to promote their resort using social media and also handling a client’s complaint.

Nationals take place April 29 – May 4 in Orlando, FL.

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