Business students take fourth at nationals

They knew it played well locally and at the state level, so the trio took their My Town show on the road and learned their efforts were well received on the national level, too.
The team of Tory Arnberger, Devan Boeger, and Emily Goad, Great Bend High School Future Business Leaders of America members, brought home fourth-place honors from a recent national leadership conference in Anaheim, Calif.
            “I am so incredibly proud of these girls who represented our chapter,” said Cody Kinsinger, FBLA chapter adviser and GBHS business teacher. “Bringing home a fourth-place national award is astounding.”
            “To come from a smaller town and to be able to compete and win is really exciting,” said Goad. She noted that their professionalism, knowledge of the My Town Project and their ability to answer the judges’ questions articulately served them well at the contest.
            The team competed in the Partnership with a Business event that recognizes FBLA chapters that develop and implement the most innovative, creative and effective partnership plan.  The purpose of the project is to learn about a business through communication and interaction with the business community.
            The award was part of a comprehensive, competitive-events program. Individuals, state teams and local chapters were encouraged to compete in any of the nearly 60 different events representing a wide range of activities. The winners of the highly competitive and prestigious awards were selected from among FBLA-PBL’s membership of more than 250,000 students and advisers and represent some of the best and brightest of today’s youth.
           Also competing at the national level was Emily Herrman in Spreadsheet Applications.  Although she did not place at the national level, she is coming back with some very valuable experience that she gained in Anaheim, Kinsinger said, 
“We have some very talented individuals in our school and they deserve the credit for all their hard work,” Kinsinger said. “They are definitely setting our club up for integrity and dedication to our community.”
Held in conjunction with the National Leadership Conference, the Institute for Leaders wan an intensive, two-day seminar is a focused-leadership experience for state and local chapter officers, as well as members and advisers. This training conference prepares student leaders and members to assume their chapter responsibilities and develop valuable life skills. There they gained valuable knowledge of various leadership activities such as areas in finance, putting on workshops and community service projects, corporate sponsorship, fundraising and officership.
“Two of our five officers for next year attended the officership leadership training,” Kinsinger said. “We are very excited about our possibilities for the future.”
The officers are Tory Arnberger and Emily Goad., she said, explaining that Tory will serve as a co-president and Emily will serve as the parliamentarian this next school year.