With the arrival of fall, DECA students look to enjoy their annual DECA Fall Leadership Conference. Due to COVID-19, the EHS DECA students did not attend last year’s conference.  The conference is held annually at the First Baptist Church of Kettering near Dayton, Ohio. At the conference, students learn how to take 21st-century skills and apply them to real-world scenarios and help students with their future careers. 

DECA teacher, Mr. Chasteen, is really looking forward to making the trip and is expecting his students to do really well.” It will be a good trip to get some experience for the real competition and I’m hoping some of my older students will place in the top three”, said Mr. Chasteen. The Fall Leadership Conference is a practice event for DECA students in district 4.  District 4 includes other schools like Northmont, Middletown, and Kettering Fairmont. Students will either have a 100 question quiz over marketing cluster questions or will be given a scenario and the student will have to assume the role of a given position. The conference benefits first-year students and helps them with their nerves of doing the face-to-face interview with the judge. ” First-year students really have a hard time doing the interviews, since they have never had experience with them and lack confidence speaking to the judges in their role-play,” said Mr. Chasteen. 

Junior DECA student, Rylan Brown will be competing in his third year of DECA competitions. As a Freshman, Brown finished fifth place at the DECA Fall Leadership Conference in a scenario event. “ DECA prepares and makes me more comfortable for my future career in the business field,” said Rylan. Rylan views the marketing cluster exam as the hardest thing to do when you compete in DECA. “ The 100 question marketing cluster exam is hard since you don’t really know what kind of questions to expect,” said Rylan. Rylan enjoys socializing and meeting new people at DECA events who share a passion for business as he has. The DECA students look to have an enjoyable experience and place well at the DECA Fall Leadership Conference.