In the halls you always hear about DECA and DECA State, but what is it? DECA stands for Distributive Education Clubs of America and is a business club here at Rocky. Kids who participate in DECA can either compete in a role play or in presentation.

If you compete in a role play than you have to take a 100-question test that relates to your event. That score will then be added to your two role play scores when you compete on competition day. A role play asks the competitor to solve a given problem with 10 minutes to collect their thoughts on how to solve it and the next 10 minutes to present their idea to two judges.

For a presentation event, you are given a prompt ahead of time and have to create a presentation based on that prompt and present it to a group of judges on competition day.

High scores on all of these means you may  qualify for state. State qualifiers then repeat this process down in Colorado Springs at the state competition.  

To qualify for DECA state you have to get one of the top three scores in your event during district competitions. This year 25 Rocky students qualified for state through role plays and presentation. However, we had 55 Rocky students go to DECA state at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs.

Although only 25 students qualified from districts for state, 55 students went was because students can go straight to state if they do a DECA written report.

Most DECA kids consider a written report as the last resort if they really want to go to state because it consists of a 20-page business report that has to follow strict rules and competitors have to make a visual aid that goes along with the 20-page paper.

Senior Sidney Swan said,