Cheney High School students impress at the Future Business Leaders of America National Conference. Front row from left are Jason Hatfield (National Champion), Cameron Teresi, Joaquin Mendoza and Emme Murry. Back row from left are Garrett Heuett, Luke Hurd, Micah Richardson and Keenan Hahn.
CHENEY- Cheney High School (CHS) students took on Chicago June 28–July 2 at the Future Business Leaders of America National Conference and placed Top 15 in six events.
The conference featured over 12,000 students and more than 90 events where students showcased hard work in their technical education courses.
"It's a filtering process. You have a regional contest in February, then a state conference in April, and then nationals. Each time you move up, you eliminate options," said Cheney School District Career Technical Education (CTE) Director for business education Adam Smith.
Each event the students competed in required a different assessment. Still, Smith said most contained a 100-question test, a role-play session, and 20 minutes to figure out a solution and present it to a set of judges.
Jason Hatfield is the first national champion to emerge from CHS for his success in the computer problem-solving event.
"It was an amazing experience. In general, it was super fun being in Chicago- we went all over," Hatfield said. "It was like a celebration of everything that we've done to get to this moment."
He said that in all three years of his hard work in FBLA, Hatfield never expected to place first at a national competition.
Further success lay in the network design event, where two teams of students placed top five in the nation.
"The team of Keenan Hahn, Luke Hurd and Garrett Heuett was third in the nation, and the team of Micah Richardson and Joaquin Mendoza was fifth," Smith said in a July 5 press release.
Smith attributed much of the success to the complexities within the CTE program.
"We've placed in the top 15 in the nation either nine or 10 times out of the last 14 years in network design, Smith said. "We run a Cisco networking academy and our kids learn many high-end technology skills."
Emme Murray earned third place in database design. Cameron Teresi placed tenth in the help desk event.
Smith said CHS is one of the only schools in the state to teach databases and believes that this demonstrates an effort in trying to give students the best skills heading out of the program.
"Everybody is all about data but nobody teaches it," he said. "To be able to take someone like Emme who wants to go into the medical field and have her understand how data is put together- she has no idea how much that is going to benefit her in her future."
The marketing team of Finn Syrie and Mika Corneil placed top 15 in the nation for their event.
"These events are supposed to be co curricular, meaning what these kids are doing is a reflection of what is happening in the classroom. Having two teams in network design up on stage and finishing top five in the nation is a lot of validation in what we're doing in the classroom," Smith said. "As CTE director, this is something I'm proud of."
Michaela is a former newsroom intern at the Cheney Free Press. She covered stories on education, city government, cops/courts/fire departments and local businesses.
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