This year, from April 26 to May 1, DECA competitors traveled to Anaheim, CA to compete in the International Career Development 2024 Conference (ICDC) with hopes of making it to the finals.
Five students from LSHS made it to the International Competition this year. There were two senior partnerships this year. The first partnership was Student-Based-Enterprise Director Lilly Turner and Vice President of DECA Ava McGee. The other partnership was senior President of DECA Kylie Monson and junior Payton Thompson Vanausdeln. These four and a single competitor, junior Sahib Malhi, flew to California with advisors Karen Morton and David Marques.
Malhi was honored as one of the top test takers among all students who competed in the country. He was not a finalist but was given a medal for his impressive performance.
Monson with Vanausdeln and Turner with McGee made Student-Based Enterprise presentations and wrote about their experiences at The Cove. McGee and Turner wrote about the retail side of The Cove, and Monson and Vanausdeln wrote about the food in The Cove.
“To qualify we wrote fifty pages each about The Cove and different things like finances. Our topic this year was product service management, which we made a presentation for after we qualified,” Monson explained.
The five students planned for months to compete at ICDC against sixteen other countries for the judges.
“My favorite part was probably seeing all the different people, and every state got their own goody bags with different pins and other things,” Turner said.
She valued the social aspect of seeing how DECA clubs in other states and countries were run. All DECA clubs around the country and the world have the same goal: promote leadership.
Through DECA, students have learned leadership skills and how to break out of their shells around large groups of people. This conference brought club members worldwide together to compete and participate through presentations.
After it all was over, the DECA students celebrated.
“My favorite part was probably Disneyland,” McGee said.
DECA students who went to ICDC spent a day in Disneyland as a treat for their hard work throughout the year.
