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Sydney Heckmann

Leaders of Clothing Collective finish presenting their Financial Literacy project

Orono DECA has had a rollercoaster within the past two years from the spring of 2020 cancellation, to online video presentations in 2021, and back to in-person interactions this year. For seniors, this year was their first time back competing against schools face-to face and having a true conversation with the judges.

“DECA forces the kid to understand how things work, how to shake hands, how to make eye contact, how to have all the soft skills that are necessary. They also know that if you’re going to be successful, you’re gonna have to work hard,” DECA advisor Keith Jurek said.

Orono started the process for district competition in Oct. with finding topics and partners to work with. Students had to write and present their projects in-person to judges all over Minnesota. Along the way, students found that DECA is a hard project to put together, but it is the thrill of roleplaying and presenting that bring the students back for more competitions. On Jan. 30, 2022, both seniors and juniors participating in DECA at Orono had the chance to present their projects and roleplays to judges in-person since COVID-19 at Wayzata High School.

“The experience was awesome at both [State and District Conference] because of all the people who all want to be immersed into the business world. I think the International Conference [ICDC] will have the same kind of feel but at a totally different scale,” junior DECA participant Riley Snow said.

As Orono DECA advanced to the State Conference that took place on March 6-8, 2022, 71 Orono students moved on in competing in their paper projects and roleplay at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Minneapolis. Orono students swept the International Business Plan event by placing all four of Orono teams in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th place and continuing to the next level at Internationals Conference. 1st place was Charlie Gielow and Jack Wortman, 2nd place was Harry Finch and Caleb Stephens, 3rd place was Megan Kauch and Mia Lopez, and lastly, 4th place was Will Fritz, Mae Grandy, and Angus Muldoon.

“I think the State Conference level was way better than what we expected just because of having COVID last year and we didn’t get to have the full experience. I think the international conference will look like the State Conference, but I think it’ll be on a larger scale since there’s a lot more DECA to do,” senior DECA participant Grace Knooihuizen said.

The State Conference was the place for Orono to shine bright in chapter projects with placing 1st in the Financial Literacy event with Clothing Collective Initiative by Lilly Reiner, Jennifer Nguyen, and Olivia Fegers. Also placing 2nd in the Community Giving event was Care For Troncones by Aiden Ecker, Charlotte Finch, and Jack Kopesky.

“Our Financial Literacy project was to establish a new club at Orono, so we had to go through a lot of the steps in writing and preparing for the club and DECA in Sept. And we came up with the idea for our project in May of last year, so we had been working on it throughout the summer and started putting the paper project together in Oct. all the way through Feb,” Reiner said.

Continuing the tradition at Orono, 26 students will advance to the DECA International Competition [ICDC] in Atlanta, Georgia on April 23-26. About 20,000 participants will be attending the conference, from students, to judges, to advisors. There are schools from around the world competing in ICDC including; China, England, Germany, Spain, Japan, Mexico, and all 50 states.

“We spent a lot of time fine tuning our project. Every second we have, it was for this project. Now we’re bringing it to that next level to be competitive, going back in and making edits and all of our work is DECA ready. ICDC level is what we have been working for this whole year,” Reiner said.

“Later in life when DECA becomes important for the kid, they’re in a better position to be successful, because they have gotten through the trials and tribulations of success and many times failure, all of which better prepares you for handling things in the future,” Jurek said.