Thousands of DECA participants will head to Orlando, Florida, April 26, to compete for their club at the highest level, the DECA International Career Culmination Conference. For the first time since 2019 and with the largest group of qualifiers yet, DGN DECA will be present.
“DECA is a business club for business marketing, entrepreneurship, and some other business categories,” DECA advisor Larry Baca said. “ It covers civic conciousness, public speaking, business content knowledge, and leadership. They are given a scenario and they have to come up with a solution quickly. Written events are not required, but are a prepared project where you go out and find a business or start your own business and you have to improve it.”
Making it far in any DECA event is an endeavor that requires hours of work and study time. As competition levels progress, the stakes increase.
“If you take the top four at state you move to Nationals. Written events have to place top three at state to go to nationals. Role plays are probably harder to qualify for, because the competition pool is larger. In my opinion, the secret to doing well is to take courses like accounting that would help you with your event, because we only get to practice for about 40 minutes in our meetings,” Baca said.
Out of a chapter of over 200 kids, only 13 qualified this year. In most other years, only a couple qualify. Qualifying does not automatically get you to Nationals. Competitors must fund their trip. Additionally, the conference is five days long and demands time off of school.
“Last year was the first year I had ever seen that we did not have a qualifier. The year before we had a handful, but we have kids who choose not to go because it is a big expense and you have to miss a lot of school. We went from having the lowest qualifiers in my time here to the most this year,” Baca said
Getting to Nationals may feel like a relief, but there is more work to be done once DECA competitors make it to Orlando for the conference. The five days of the competition will be jam-packed with activities.
“In Orlando, our group is going to be presenting our written event on Sunday. Assuming we do this well, we will get called back up to present again on Tuesday,” DECA President Russel Oros said.
Hard work will have to be done in Orlando, but there is also plenty of time for fun activities too. DECA has added other things to their itinerary that are not just competition related.
“The thing that is great about Nationals is that we have a lot of free time. We all are planning on going to Universal studios. Other than that, I will probably hang at the pool and walk around Orlando,” DECA Vice President Nolan Hurter said.
For many Seniors, this will be the last thing they do as a part of DECA.
“It is really special. We pretty much broke every record this year. We had 35 qualifiers for state, we won 20 state metals and had 13 qualifiers for Nationals. What I am proud about is chapter growth and engagement. I am super proud of our officers, four out of the five are seniors. I am sad to see them in their last endeavor for DECA but I am excited to see where it takes them,” Baca said.