State beckons as DECA stages resurrection from Covid slumber
Give me a D! Give me an E. Give me a C and A! What does that spell? High finance, baby!
Rising from the grave of forgotten clubs is DECA: the Distributive Education Clubs of America. While its business focus may not be for everyone, the club offers competitive opportunities, as well as potential scholarships. After competing in regionals in early January, four students are making their way to state at the end of February.
The club made its return after hibernating during the isolated years of COVID, and it comes back with a new face in leadership as business teacher Scott Mankiewicz takes the reins.
“Since this is my first year, we have really focused on the competition aspect,” he said. “Students select a competitive event, and that can be anywhere from fashion, sport entertainment marketing, accounting, to business services.”
The State Career Development Conference is three days long, and each competition lasts about an hour. They are judged based on five to seven performance indicators. Additionally, there are workshops and other activities students can participate in throughout the day.
“When they compete, they are given two different scenarios that could exist in the business world,” Mankiewicz said. “Depending on the event, they have 10 minutes to prepare, and if it’s a team event they have 25 minutes to prepare.”
Students then present their work to a judge for scoring.
“After they have read their scenario and prepared their presentation, they go into a different room and present it to a judge that is a part of the industry or event that they signed up for,” Mankiwicz said. “So if they signed up for fashion, the judge will more than likely have experience in the fashion industry.”
DECA President, junior Kellyn Zehner, appreciates the versatility of the experience gained from the club.
“It helps prepare you for real life situations,” she said. “Even if business isn’t your path, you get to act and prepare for many situations that you could face in any career.”
Mankiewicz hopes to set DECA up for success.
“I wanted a junior for president because it’s my first year here and that way we can both learn about DECA together and be even better next year,” he said.
Mankiewicz also sees great potential in this club and the accomplishments they can make.
“The main goal of DECA is to dominate the business halls,” he said. “I want DECA to be known as a shining star on the flag of Oshkosh West, and expand it into more than just competitions.”
While competition is their present focus, members plan to continue to push their efforts in other additional avenues.
“There are also other aspects of DECA, it’s not just business, profit, and money,” Mankiewicz said. “There’s a huge community service aspect to it where not only can you go to state and internationals, but you can go to food drives and blood drives.”
During expansion, club members have been working with the school store, helping manage it, and make designs for clothing. They plan to do something similar with other businesses outside of West.
“Another part of DECA is working local area businesses and providing advertisements for them,” Mankiewicz said. “This works two-fold because the businesses are getting benefits, like an advertising campaign, but then also the students get to work with a business and get that outside of the classroom experience while learning and competing all at the same time.”
DECA offers students a way to apply what they’ve learned in class to the outside world, according to Mankiewicz.
“Teaching an elective class, you kind of have three pillars: inside the classroom, the outside world where students learn with their jobs, and the CTSO, Career and Technical Student Organization, which is a bridge between the classroom and the world outside of the classroom,” he said. “It’s another facet for students who like business classes to extend their learning.”
Sophomore Decorah Vienola and her partner, sophomore Lyla Wesenberg, are two of the state qualifiers.
“We got a 97 out of 100 on our roleplay which was a lot better than what we expected,” Vienola said. “We didn’t even really know what it was. We’re all new, so we were pretty unprepared, but next year, since we have more experience, we should do even better.”
Wesenberg found comfort in going through the experience with a partner.
“It was nice to go into it with someone,” she said. “It definitely made the roleplay easier having someone to work with, like two brains coming together.”
Their successes haven’t come without difficulties.
“The biggest challenge we’ve faced is the short timeline, but we’ve had good placements, especially for it being all of our team’s first time competing,” Zehner said.
The hard work made the experience even more beneficial for junior state qualifier Megan Nelson.
“The biggest challenge in DECA is the nerves that you have to overcome during the competition,” she said. “The atmosphere can be very intimidating as everyone there takes it really seriously, however, it’s even more rewarding when you finish and can celebrate as a team.”
Nelson also admires the communal aspect that came from the competition.
“Neither me or my partner were expecting to make it to state as it was our first year,” she said. “We are just really excited to experience such an event with so many other people from other schools.”
Vienola values the knowledge both DECA and her classes have given her.
“It’s given me a better understanding of business,” she said. “Our category is entrepreneurship, so it’s helped me with vocab and both of us are in a business class which really prepared us.”
She appreciated the opportunity to share her victory with other students in DECA.
“When other people in our group would win it was so much fun,” Vienola said. “We had such a small group compared to all of the other schools, so it made it really special to us.”
By Addi Isely
February 21 2023
Oshkosh West Index volume 119 Issue V