Nine CFHS DECA participants travel to Nationals in California

Kellie Petersen/Editor-in-Chief
Nine Cedar Falls High School DECA participants traveled to Anaheim, California last week with faculty advisor Matthew Flaherty for the National DECA competition. Participants were required to have placed 1st or 2nd at state, be president of State DECA, or be chosen leaders of State DECA in order to participate.

Senior Mike Bangston, senior Tyler Brewer, junior Lizzy Christopherson, senior Dylan Deery, junior Alex Entz, senior Matt Hart, junior Alexis Rokes and junior Linden Terpstra all fulfilled these requirements. Senior Mackensie Smith also was eligible to participate with her 1st place at state in Food Marketing Services.

There are several different circumstances and competitions in which DECA students may participate. Troendle participated as the state president of Iowa’s DECA chapter, Deery and Bangston participated as a team in the Leadership chapter, Terpstra and Brewer participated individually in Entrepreneurship Franchising Buisness, Rokes and Christopherson participated individually in Entrepreneurship Written Team and Hart and Entz participated as a team in Marketing Research Project.

Rokes felt that her competition experience went well.

“I thought our Presentation went well in general and we got good feed back from our judge so that was really good,” Rokes said.

For the most part, DECA participants enjoyed meeting other DECA participants from around the country and the general experience of the competition.

“I feel like the meetings I attended were advantageous and interesting, I had a lot of fun sight seeing and speaking with officers from other states. The best part was probably hanging out with the people from the other Iowa chapters and other officers,” Troendle said.

There were no participants from Cedar Falls High School who earned one of the ten places available.