By By MIKELL FREY / Niles Daily Star
Ten of 17 members of the Niles High School Chapter of Business Professionals of America will be advancing to the BPA state competition for their hard work and efforts at the 2005 Regional Leadership Conference, held Jan. 7 in Grand Rapids.
The regional event included around 700 kids, 25 to 30 schools and over 200 judges from the region.
According to advisors Michele Clement and Susan Miller, the Niles BPA students performed better at this event overall then they have in the past.
Probably one of the more unprecedented events at the competition came from senior Geoffrey Antos, who managed to secure first place in all four events he competed in. They included Administrative Support Concepts, C++ Programming, Information Technology Concepts and Computer Network Technology.
Other students who will continue on at the state level of competition in Grand Rapids include Claire Blanchard, Sarah Creher, Tami Madison, Nick Zechlin, Jeremy Ockerman, Danielle Foster, Nathan Fink, Ashley Jenks and Matthew Smith. Other students competing at regionals were Collin Aycock, Kyra Carpenter, Cory Corban, Jordan Hendricks, Chandel Lawrence, Megan Scameheorn and Jessica Shinsky.
At the competition, each student was expected to perform in two major events and two open events. These events included things like speeches, group work, accounting tests and scantron tests. Three judges were assigned to each event, and a dance was held in the later part of the day for students while the judges graded the tests.
BPA, a national career/technical student organization, has over 54,000 high school and college level members across the nation.
The organization specializes in four different areas of business education. They include financial business, administrative business, human resources management and technology.
Students hone in on accounting, banking, keyboarding skills, computer programming and interviewing through their membership in the organization.
Junior Ashley Jenks, who has been with the organization for two years and took seventh place in Advanced Word Processing at regionals, believes BPA is a wonderful thing to be a part of.
Students in the BPA organization learn how to better their community through service learning projects, gain valuable real world experiences by networking with students and business professionals throughout the state and nation and compete in demonstrations on the regional, state and national levels.
From state, the top two teams and three individuals in the competition will advance on to the BPA Nationals, held this year in Anaheim, Calif.
The state competition is set for March 17-19, and nationals will take place April 21-24. In years gone by students have traveled everywhere from Cincinnatti to Dallas, Chicago and Orlando, Fla. for the national event.
Clement and Miller are proud of their group, and can't wait to see them in action at their next level of competition.