//DILLON BATESKI, AUDREY LYP, and DAVE MIRIYALA//

Mountain Vista students represented themselves among 3,500 students at the DECA State competition that was held the past week at The Broadmoor. Vista students were awarded 6 State Champion medals as well as 12 ICDC (National) qualifiers.

Seniors Kate Albi, Drew Garrett, and Meghan Maleri competed in Integrated Marketing Campaign, winning 1st place.

“[Integrated Marketing Campaign] is a prepared event that presents a 6 week advertising campaign for a company,” Albi said. “My group did our campaign on VineX.”

There were around 70-80 teams that competed in their event, Garrett said in an interview.

“When I won, it was super nerve wracking,” Garrett said. “They call the top 10 finalists on stage in front of the whole conference and presented them in reverse order, so when they  announced 2nd and I still hadn’t been called I was either gonna win it all or go home empty handed.”

DECA Adviser, Candice Dobert, had the opportunity of attending the DECA State competition with the Vista competitors. “I was thrilled, excited and overwhelmed that we did that good.” Dobert said. “Since the DECA group is a bunch of tight knit kids, it was great to see everyone win during the state competition, even though some kids didn’t win everyone was still very supportive.”

Students won in categories varying from entrepreneurship, business finance, and marketing campaign, overall showing a wide expertise in many different forms. Nationals will be held on April 26-30 in Orlando, Florida.   

Feature photo courtesy of Emily Huff