DECA

Six+DECA+State+attendees+at+the+Broadmoor+before+they+go+to+their+roll+plays.+

Six DECA State attendees at the Broadmoor before they go to their roll plays.

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,

“ Although I didn’t make it past to first round in my event (Community Service), I am still glad I decided to go for the experience.”

— Sidney Swan

This statement seems to be a general consensus with the 55 students who attended the event.

Junior Garrit Wilson said, “…I’m glad I went, but I wouldn’t probably go again next year just because it is expensive.”

Make sure you congratulate all the students who went to state this year especially, Carter Galyardt, Rowen Steger, and Colin Patterson for placing 2nd in Business Growth Plan and Katie McDonald who got 3rd in Professional Selling. All have qualified nationally. As well as these students who made it to the finals round: Lily Carmichael in Invasion Plan, Karolyn Curry, Madelyn Flemister, and Cassidy Weaver all in Entrepreneurship Promotion.