News Photo by Julie Goldberg Left to right, Alpena High School students Jimmy Bolanowski, Madison Timmreck, Morgan LaLonde, Brooke Gersewski, and Taylor Foster competed in the DECA International Competition last week in Atlanta, Ga.

ALPENA — Alpena High School students from the school’s Distributive Education Clubs of America Chapter competed in the DECA International Competition last week in Atlanta, Ga. and gained experience that they can use in the future.

Sophomores Madison Timmreck and Jimmy Bolanowski, junior Brooke Gersewski, and seniors Morgan LaLonde and Taylor Foster traveled to Atlanta and competed in different events.

“It was really good that we got there,” Gersewski said. “When we made the finals, it was a shock, we were all really surprised but it was really good. We met a lot of new people from different states, different countries, from our own state, and I had a ton of fun.”

Timmreck said they learned a lot of information that they can tell to the rest of the school’s DECA Chapter to use for the future.

Timmreck, Gersewski, and LaLonde competed in the school-based enterprise portion of the competition after they received gold level certification for their work with Campus Closet at AHS. The three were named International Finalists, which meant they were in the top 20 of the 200 schools that competed.

“For the school-based enterprise, before we competed, we went to an academy to learn about other school stores,” Gersewski said. “We got the school-based enterprise pin also.”

The main topic of the group’s presentation was marketing information management and Timmreck said the four performance indicators that their presentation was focused around.

“The round was in front of a judge,” Timmreck said. “We brought a whole bunch of retail with us as well, so that kind of set us apart from a lot of other teams because not many other teams brought them.”

While at the competition, the students toured the CNN building and got to go backstage, and visit an aquarium, the World of Coca-Cola, and different buildings in Atlanta.

Bolanowski and Foster participated in the Thrive Academy while competing. Based on what the Alpena DECA Chapter did this year, the two were able to attend the academy and they received Thrive Academy pins for participating.

“At the academy, there was three different sessions on the second day,” Foster said. “Jimmy attended a community service session and I attended a competitive event session, so with both of those, we got notes that we can bring back to our chapter.”

Foster said the first thing they did at the academy was split into groups to connect with students from other states.

“That’s who you did all of your stuff with and all of your activities with the first day,” Foster said. “My group became all good friends and exchanged social media and we all stuck together for the second day.”

Bolanowski said at the academy, they worked on team building skills and spent time learning how to work together.

“The competitive events were different because Jimmy and I were at different sessions,” Foster said. “We worked on splitting up our times for our preparation period when you compete and what you should be doing during different time frames. After that was done, we implemented it.”

To continue improving and return to the DECA International Competition next year, the chapter is going to find ways to improve.

“We learned a lot of communication and other things and what Taylor learned at the academy can really help us next year,” Gersewski said.

Timmreck said the experiences they all learned from this year will help the chapter continue building Campus Closet at the school. She said she plans to run for DECA state officer for Michigan next year.

Foster said she has been exploring the idea of participating in collegiate DECA and after being a member of Alpena’s DECA Chapter, she is going to continue being a DECA member in college.

“All the sessions that we attended will help them in high school and when I decide to join a chapter in college, it will help that,” she said.

Julie Goldberg can be reached via email at jgoldberg@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5688.