Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Top of the class

Teens mean business

DECA Club students hit the mall for the District 4 competition of the business and marketing club.

By MATHEW WASSERMAN
Published December 8, 2005

PORT RICHEY - Many of the high school students dressed in suits and ties or dresses and heels were nervous as they stepped off the bus at Gulf View Square mall Nov. 10. It was the big day that DECA Club students had been preparing for all semester.

"On the way there, we were all pretty nervous. But once we got there, people made us feel comfortable and it was fun," said 15-year-old ninth-grader Rianna Jenkins. "We were prepared, so we all knew what to expect."

Jenkins and her partner, 16-year-old freshman Latoya Patrick, were first-place winners that day at the District 4 DECA competition. They showed the poise of company executives as they explained to a judge how their fictitious sports promotion company could promote a local college's women's hockey team. Their presentation lasted about seven minutes and was full of information they learned in Hernando High School's entrepreneurship program, which is the curriculum companion of DECA.

"The scenario was that this hockey team wasn't drawing a crowd, so we came up with a bunch of gimmicks to draw people to it," Jenkins said. "We used promotional ideas like college students with IDs getting half off the tickets, or people wearing the team jerseys getting a certain percentage off. Just ways to get people's interest."

The big event at Gulf View Square has been drawing hundreds of DECA students from Hernando County high schools for the past eight years. Because DECA is a marketing and business club, advisers, students and mall employees find the location a perfect fit.

"The mall is a great place for this because the students see the retail side and the office and management side," said Tara Holley, director of mall marketing at Gulf View Square. "Being in this type of business environment adds excitement and realism to the program."

There were 15 categories in the competition, ranging from sports entertainment to financial management. Each student, or team of students, read about a scenario and then acted out a solution to the problem or presented a proposal. Community and business members and mall employees judged the way the students handled their scenarios.

"There are a lot of different scenarios the students might have to enact depending on which category they're in," said Hernando High DECA adviser and teacher Carol Short. "Some students are managers reprimanding an employee for doing something wrong; some are store employees dealing with an irate customer who drove 45 minutes to buy something that the store is sold out of; some are executives making business proposals. And that's just a few of them."

The competition also includes a test in each student's subject area and in math, which will come later this month. Winners will be recognized at the DECA Championship Breakfast on Jan. 6.

"Once the scores are in from all three portions of the test, then we'll know which students can go to the state competition in Orlando this March," said Springstead High DECA adviser and teacher Marco Feola. The national competition will be in Dallas in April.

Students got to the mall a little after 9:30 a.m. the day of the competition, and by 12:30 p.m. they were gone. Most performances were five to seven minutes. When not preparing or role playing, the students shopped and ate.

"It was fun being at the mall all morning," said 17-year-old Hernando High junior Ryan Lamb. "We got to meet students from the other high schools and hang out in the food court and stuff."

Although the idea of 300 kids wandering around the mall on a school day might sound threatening, the mall welcomes them each year.

"It's been going on for so long now that most of the tenants are usually excited about it," Holley said. "We like getting involved in the community and see it as a goodwill gesture."

It also probably doesn't hurt business to have 300 hungry and shop-happy teenagers roaming the mall.

"The anchor stores at the mall have always been very supportive," said Short.

The DECA students meet at least once a month outside of regular classes and work on side projects throughout the year. As they prepare for the remainder of the competition, the students say they will draw from their real-life applications at the mall and take those experiences with them after they graduate.

"We work pretty hard on these classes and this club, so it's nice to put what we learn to use," Jenkins said. "This event gave us experience organizing ourselves and working with other people. A lot of people who were in DECA and graduated said it did a lot for them. Hopefully it will do the same for me."

Mathew Wasserman can be reached at Mat65432@aol.com

[Last modified December 8, 2005, 00:50:19]