St. Louis High School’s Business Professionals of America team competed in the regional competition Jan. 20, 2024, at Central Michigan University in the business center. St. Louis was one of the 13 schools participating in this competition, which was rescheduled due to dangerous road conditions the week prior.
Because of the rescheduling, some people unfortunately couldn’t make it to the makeup date, but senior Mckenzie Smith was able to qualify for the upcoming state event in her open event. “On the day of BPA regionals, I sadly had to pick between that or poms regionals. Because of this, I didn’t expect to make it to state. But I found out I made it on an open event that I did online before regionals. That was one of the happiest things ever! Also knowing that all of my friends made it makes me so excited!” Smith placed fourth overall in her Digital Communications and & Design Concepts event.
This year, a lot of seniors participated in BPA and will be going onto the state competition. Senior Dom Girard said, “I feel regionals overall went amazing for us. We had a lot of new people join BPA this year and do really well in their events, as well as add great personalities to our group. My team did quite spectacularly in our event as well, and I’m very excited to see what state holds for everyone.” Girard and his team which consisted of him and fellow seniors Lucee Mikek and Jaiden Dickman took first place in the presentation team event.
St. Louis’ BPA team qualified in 16 different events, both solo and team. The first-place qualifiers were Kiernan Hougaboom in Computer Network Technology, Claire Hubble in Graphic Design Promotion, and the team of Dom Girard, Lucee Mikek, and Jaiden Dickman for Presentation Team. The second-place takers were the team of Carson Butcher, Natalie Hoyt, Devante Nava, and Benjamin March for Broadcast News Production, Lillie Thayer for Health Administration Concepts, Lexie Thayer for Human Resource Management, Briana Howard for Information Technology Concepts, and Natalie Lemert for Individual Presentation. Third-place awards were given to Sophia Miller for Administrative Support Research Project, Aaliyah Villarreal for Interview Skills, and Lillie Thayer for Individual Presentation. The top six in individual events qualified for state, and the top two for group projects qualify. People who placed 4th-6th in individual events were Kiernan Hugaboom, Hayden Shattuck, McKenzie Smith, Myah Pitcher, Zoey Clarke, Gracie Lombard, Jaiden Dickman, Landon Pestrue, Natalee Hoyt, Lillie Shattuck, Lucee Mikek, and Lexie Thayer.
The BPA team will be heading to state March 7-10, which is held in Grand Rapids, where they will compete to qualify for nationals.
