Midlo DECA Rides the Waves to Victory at Virginia Beach

DECA State Leadership Conference 2018

Midlo DECA students prepare to compete at SLC.

On March 2-4, 2018, Midlothian High School DECA State Leadership Conference (SLC) qualifiers traveled to Virginia Beach, Virginia, filled with a tremendous amount of excitement for the impending competition. SLC is always a big event for Midlo DECA and a weekend that many students never forget. Not only do they compete against students from many other schools in Virginia, but they also spend time with each other, create great memories, and dine out at new places, such as Virginia Beach’s delicious pizza place, Dough Boys.

DECA focuses on marketing, so any student who joins DECA must be enrolled in a business/marketing class, in accordance to Virginia DECA rules. The club provides an opportunity for students to experience life as an entrepreneur, an inventor, or a marketing planner. At DECA competitions, like SLC, the students face difficult tasks involving business/marketing problems, and they create plans to solve the problems. The issues range from how to bring in more customers to a store on a day that lacks its usual traffic to how to compete with a similar store in the same shopping center. Throughout the year, sponsor Mrs. Carolyn Manheim also hosts different catered social events for club members and sponsors community service activities. Sign-ups for DECA do not begin again until next school year, but since scheduling  is underway,  anyone interested in DECA should sign up for a marketing class to be eligible.

Mrs. Annemarie Hensley, mother of SLC competitor Lauren Hensley, received the A Friend of DECA Award  in Virginia Beach. Hensley is extremely helpful to Midlo DECA due to her assistance with the DECA Day Sub Lunch. She also took time off of her busy career as a realtor to educate IB Business Management classes on the secrets of successful real estate marketing. This year, she joined the students on the trip to Virginia Beach, along with DECA sponsor Mrs. Carolyn Manheim and business teacher Mr. Steve Scherer.

The competition to qualify for the national level of DECA that follows SLC, known as the International Career Development Conference (ICDC), is extremely difficult. Students must obtain a tremendous amount of business/marketing knowledge to reach this level. DECA sponsor Mrs. Manheim remarks, “My students went into the competition with a winning mentality, so whether they won an award or not, I am incredibly proud of all of them.”.

Congratulations to the following students, who won awards for their respective categories:

Finlay Raphael, Food Marketing, Test and Role Play

Jack Williams, Business Services Marketing, Test

Devin McCombs, Business Services Marketing, Test

Tyler Ezell, Marketing Communications, Role plays (2)

Lauren Hensley, Full-Service Restaurant Management, Role Play

Maddie McGregor: Quick-Service Restaurant Management, Test

Sujeet Alwin: Principles of Business Management & Administration, Role Play

Nathan Brown: Sports Promotion Plan, Test

And a special congratulations to the four students who have qualified to represent Midlothian High School at the International Career Development Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, in April:

Finlay Raphael, Food Marketing

Devin McCombs, Business Services Marketing

Lauren Hensley, Full-Service Restaurant Management

Sujeet Alwin, Principles of Business Management and Administration