On Friday, February 15th, Mrs. Kelsey Anderson, FBLA sponsor, took a group of FBLA members to the FBLA district competition.
The members who competed put in a lot of work before the competition. Each group had different projects that they had to complete; some were pre-judged before the presentation and others were first seen at their presentation. Mrs. Anderson also made every team practice with her at least twice to prepare themselves for the competition, and so she could give them some advice to better their projects.
“I feel like most of the participants did a great job in preparing for districts,” said Mrs. Kelsey Anderson. “I had some students working on their projects back in November already. Most of the teams practiced multiple times and worked on their own time as well to get ready. I was very impressed with the overall improvement in the teams from the first time they came in and practiced to each team’s final performance. They all took the feedback I gave them and applied changes in order to improve their presentations, and I think their time and effort definitely paid off.”
FBLA members were asked about how they prepared for their projects.
Freshman Miranda Yarbrough, 1st place in the Social Media Campaign presentation, replied, “We had to research a lot of social media platforms, create pages for those platforms, and even did a student survey to collect data for our presentation.”
Junior Lydia Otten, who took the Word Processing test, answered, “I just studied and did a lot of practice runs on Microsoft Word.”
“I got together with my group members every day to practice and [perfect] skills that [were] needed for our presentation,” said Natalie Pecaut, 2nd place in the Public Service Announcement.
The members were also asked about how they felt during their presentations.
Senior Miranda Durbin, 1st place in Website Design, commented, “A lot calmer than I expected. I was nervous beforehand, but the second I said, ‘Good morning!’ I lost all of those nerves and it was so much easier than I expected.”
Senior Olivia Williams, 1st in Sales Presentation and Publication Design, said, “I was really nervous for both of my presentations, but once I started, I was more calm. I felt like I spoke loud and clear. I also felt like I really sold my product for my Sales Presentation event. My group also did a great job in the Publication Design event. We were very professional and gave good answers to the questions they asked us.”
Our FBLA chapter was able to bring home a record of eleven 1st place medals this year, with seven of them being in performance events and four being objective tests. The other medals that FBLA got for objective tests were four 2nd place, four 3rd place, one 4th place, and four 5th place medals. The other medals that FBLA got in objective tests were two 2nd place, three 3rd place, and one 4th place medal. The members that got 1st in a performance event or 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in an objective test have qualified for the state competition.
The members were asked about how they felt about the results they got on their projects.
Junior Grace Allgaier, 3rd place in the Journalism objective test, answered, “I was very excited when Julia sent me a text saying I had made it to state. I wasn't really expecting that I would make it to state, so I was just super excited.”
“I am so excited that I made it to state,” said Olivia Williams. “It feels so good knowing that all your hard work paid off. Sadly, any seniors that qualified for state will be on Senior Trip, so we may not get to go. But it is still a huge accomplishment on qualifying!”
“I am very excited and nervous to go to state,” said Miranda Yarbrough. “I feel like it’s a big deal to go to state as a freshman and am very honored to go.”
Mrs. Anderson was asked how she felt about the district competition, and she replied, “I am extremely proud of what we brought to FBLA districts this year as a group. I feel like the students did an incredible job and should be extremely proud of themselves. Their hard work definitely paid off!”
Congratulations to everyone who placed at the district level of the FBLA competition, and good luck to those who have qualified for the state competition!