Saturday, March 12, 14 students competed in the DECA state meet. Three will move on to the national competition later this year.

Junior Jack McGuire, who placed first at state, senior Nika Kosirati who placed second and senior Nick Torres, who placed third, will all be moving on to nationals later this year for accounting applications.

“What I liked about the state tournament was that we had three days to compete, and we only had one day at sectionals,” McGuire said. “That means we had a lot more time because we had two extra days to do the same amount of stuff.”

Torres and McGuire will represent DGN and Ill. at the International Career Development Conference, in Nashville, Tenn., this April.

DECA also won four awards as a team, including a 48% growth in membership, an award for community service, a bronze level award for chapter activity in the iConnect competition and a super star chapter award.

“The kids learn a lot of business background knowledge, which is going to help them go into their career fields when they get older,” DECA sponsor Larry Baca said. “It’s a great opportunity to network and meet people that are working in the business field right now.”