Superintendent Justin Bartholomew and Principal Brenda Erhardt are pleased to share that three Pentucket Regional High School (PRHS) students in the school’s DECA chapter qualified to compete in the international competition.
On Feb. 27 and March 1, PRHS’ DECA chapter joined high school business, finance, hospitality, and marketing students at the annual association career development conference.
DECA is a nonprofit that prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality and management and now has more than 260,000 members in 4,000 high school and college chapters in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and Germany.
Seniors Aidan Blot, James Nightingale and Luke Zavaski placed fifth in the Career Development Project category at the conference.
The Career Development Project uses the project management process to promote/educate the knowledge and skills needed for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality, management and entrepreneurship. Students are evaluated at the competition based on a written document and oral presentation which includes questions from judges.
The students will advance to international competition at the DECA International Career Development Conference, which will be held April 26-29 in Orlando, FL. This is the first time in program history that a Pentucket DECA project has qualified for the international competition.
To compete at the International Conference, each student has to contribute about $400. The students immediately began fundraising through Betterworld, a free service that helps support individuals, businesses, and nonprofits in raising money to serve their communities. They also sought out donations from local businesses.
So far, their efforts have raised $1,800.
Principal Erhardt said that the students’ fundraising efforts are a testament to who they are as students and members of DECA.
“I was impressed from the start when the students immediately took a leadership role in the fundraising efforts needed to take part in the international competition,” said Principal Erhardt. “The group is driven, responsible and has the potential to go on to do great things.”
The chapter is advised by PRMHS business educator Haley Hamilton.
“This is a very exciting time for our DECA program as our first-ever project to qualify for DECA nationals. Luke’s vision and leadership in initiating written projects last year in our program paved the way for this success,” said Hamilton. “The team worked tirelessly, utilizing each member’s strengths — Luke’s business expertise, Aidan’s talents in video production and editing, and James’ leadership and presentation skills — to perfect their project. Their dedication to their project was inspiring to others and has made a lasting impact at our school.”
“Please join us in congratulating these students on this historic accomplishment,” said Dr. Bartholomew. “We are eager to watch these students and the rest of our DECA chapter continue to flourish in our program and we wish them the best of luck.”
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