Owatonna DECA was able to send 99 students to the State Career Development Conference (SCDC) in Minneapolis this past weekend. This is the first time that they have had a group this large go to state. 

During the school year, DECA had workshops to help prepare students for the tough competition at SCDC. At the workshops, members practiced their role plays and prepared events, sales demonstrations and interviews. 

At SCDC, students from all over Minnesota compete against each other to see who will make it to the International Career Development Conference (ICDC). To qualify for ICDC, students must make it to finals first.

This year Owatonna was able to send 23 people to finals. 

Adviser Bradley Scharber said, “I was pretty pumped about the preliminary awards because we had 23 people make it to the finals, which means they were Top 12 in the state in their event.” This is almost three times the amount of people who made it to finals compared to last year. 

Junior Addison Ahrens qualified for finals for her start-up business plan.

Ahrens said, “I was really excited to go to finals. We worked really hard on our event, so it was really rewarding to hear our names be called. Overall it was a really good experience and I am excited for next year.”

At the final award ceremony, Jessica Fisher, Noelle Kubicek and Paige Pick finished in third place for their start-up business plan. This allowed them to qualify for ICDC, which is also known as nationals. ICDC is a level up from the state level and will take place in California this April. This means that people from all over the nation will come together to compete against each other at their events. The officer team for Owatonna DECA will be heading to nationals with them as well. 

Next year, Owatonna hopes to increase the size of its chapter and grow stronger for SCDC. Scharber mentioned that he wants to figure out ways from each year on to improve so Owatonna can be even more successful at the state level.