Twenty-four District 196 high school students had top finishes at state business competitions in early March to qualify for national competitions.

Nine Rosemount High School students had top finishes at the Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA) state competition March 5-7 in Minneapolis and qualified for the qualified for the DECA International Career Development Conference in Orlando April 22-25.

Noelle Wanken of Rosemount finished third in the employment interview event to qualify as an individual.  Team qualifiers include Rosemount’s  High students Tyson Lemaniak and Joseph McNeil, and Noah Srenaski and Elliot Stone, who finished in first and fifth place, respectively, in sports and entertainment team decision making; Julia Alex and Kate Reed took fourth place in hospitality team decision making, and Madison Krulich and Adeline Talcott finished second in buying and merchandising team decision making.

The Business Professionals of America (BPA) state conference was held March 9-11 in Minneapolis. Fifteen students from Eastview, Eagan and Rosemount high schools had top finishes at the state conference and qualified for the BPA National Leadership Conference in Anaheim April 26-30.

Rosemount’s Jalen Freeman of Rosemount took first place in economic research. Qualifiers from Eastview are Fionna Liew in payroll accounting, second place; Lana Lei, fundamental accounting, third place; Aadith Balaji, Anirvin Iyer, Eshaan Jay and Jace Madrid in financial analyst team, third place, and Vikram Doraiswamy, Virinchi Nandamuru and Nirav Singhai in presentation management team, third place. Qualifiers from Eagan are Clare Dixon in java programming, fifth place, and Michael Darmody, Tatum Bennett-Etzell, Prasithan Ganeshkumar and Vishruth Kundavaram in small business management team, second place.

BPA is a cocurricular organization for students pursuing careers in accounting, business management, finance, office administration, information technology and other related career fields. DECA is an international association of high school and college students and teachers of marketing, management and entrepreneurship in business, finance, hospitality, and marketing sales and service. The organization helps prepare students for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality, management and other business areas through a variety of activities and competitions.