Photo Credit: RYAN SHUST
BY KYRA BACON
Ninety-four qualifying Cooper City High School DECA members attended the CDC State Competition in Orlando on Thursday, March 6th, to Sunday, March 9th, competing in a variety of categories in testing and business manual presentations.
To qualify for the annual State Competition, members of DECA had to place in the top 10-12 in their category at districts in mid-January by scoring high enough on their test or manual. All DECA students took the districts test on January 8th, which was also the day manuals were due. Those with five or eleven page manuals presented the following Saturday, and everyone found out their results at the districts awards ceremony.
“My favorite part of the States trip was hanging out with my friends and getting knowledge from members of other DECA chapters around the state,” junior and first-year DECA member Natan Benilov.
To lower the cost of attending the CDC State Competition, DECA held fundraisers, such as the candy box and coupon book sales. Students who qualified in testing were given the chance to get extra help by attending Testing Thursdays, meetings held to improve testing techniques that were held by VP of Testing Robert Robinson. The VP of Manuals, Jonathan Juchtman, helped out those qualifying in a business manual in the weeks leading up to States as well. These members also had to present their manual on February 15th, while test-qualifiers were required to attend a practice role play between Feb 17th-21st.
Leaving the morning of March 6th, the CCHS DECA chapter and five chaperones, including DECA head adviser Rachael Dubrow, and co-advisers Brian Snider, Linda Snider, and Patrick Scafetti, arrived in Orlando at 4pm. Members had just enough time to prepare for the opening ceremony at 7pm, which included guest speakers and speeches from the Florida DECA President and Vice-Presidents, including CCHS junior Michael Stone. From 8am- 5pm on Friday, State Competition attendees presented manuals and completed role plays. Those who qualified in testing took their State Competition category test on Saturday morning and all scores were tallied up before the closing ceremony on Saturday night.
“Through the years at DECA States, you come to realize what points you need to present, what preparations need to be made and what you need to do next time in your competitions,” VP of Fundraising Constanza Mayz said.
The closing ceremony started off with farewell speeches by the Florida State DECA Board, and the announcing of the new Florida DECA President at the end. Unfortunately, Stone, who had run for the presidency, did not win. The ceremony then proceeded to award those who placed 1st-5th in their category out of the hundreds of students present. Each individual called up on stage qualified for ICDC, DECA Nationals, in Atlanta, Georgia in early May, and were encouraged to attend a brief meeting on Sunday morning. CCHS DECA had 39 members qualify for Nationals, including most of the officers.
“Overall, I think the State competition went great, and we qualified the third most students to go to Nationals out of anyone in the state,” Dubrow said. “Our percentage of manuals that made it on stage this year was also quite high, and I am very proud of DECA.”
