Canadian artist and global ambassador Aubrey Graham, or better known by his stage name Drake, once rapped in the song “Started From The Bottom”, “Started from the bottom now the whole team here”. This lyric is a fitting description for the recent success that Future Business Leaders of America, or FBLA for short, had in their district competition which was on Feb. 5 at the Arapahoe County Fair Grounds. After only four years of the club being at the school, the club and the club’s trophy case has grown immensely.
This year, 17 students qualified for the state competition. Out of the 17, four of them placed first in their competition. Hannah Becker, sophomore, placed first in Introduction to Financial Math; Katie Winn, sophomore, placed first in Word Processing; senior and FBLA President, Logan Cone, placed first in Future Business Leader, and seniors, Sydney Becker, Kaylee Spedon, and Kavleen Singh, scored a perfect 100 percent in Public Service Announcement.
One of the biggest reasons for the club’s success is the preparation they do in advance for competitions. Whether it’s converting practice tests into Google forms to take or working on presentations for months, FBLA does a good job preparing their students for competitions. Business and tech teacher and FBLA advisor Dennis Sierra said, “With testing events, we converted a lot of practices test to Google forms and the kids are able to take and retake them.” FBLA also goes over different study guides and books that they look over for review.
The state qualifiers look to improve their district work to make sure that they are ready for state. Sierra said, “We get the judge’s scoresheets with comments and take those comments and see where we scored low in. We have to do our best to figure out if we missed something, do we just need to clean up a few bits. Honestly, if they qualified for state, they got good projects, so in a lot of cases it’s all about tweaking it.” He went on to talk about how even something as small as eye contact and a firm handshake can take it from an 89 to a 96.
Sierra expects a lot of big things for the club’s future as he said, “I’d be very surprised if we did not qualify at least three national qualifying individuals or teams. Last year was the first year we had national qualifiers for FBLA and as far as I’m concerned that’s the new standard”.
Senior and FBLA President Logan Cone wants to help the underclassmen of FBLA continue this great streak they’ve been on for years to come. He said, “It’s important to help the future leaders of not only Highlands Ranch but our world.”
FBLA will be going to their state competition on April 23 at the Gaylord Hotel and Resort. With 17 members going to compete against other state-bound projects, they hope to have some students qualify for nationals.
Evan Naemura, Online Editor
