On Jan. 5, Inglemoor DECA was a strong competitor at the area competition, with 98 of the 161 competitors advancing to the state level.
This was despite the 2017-18 school year being a year of extreme change for the chapter. For the first time, freshmen were in the DECA program, and a new adviser, Matt Pakinas, was introduced to the chapter at the beginning of this school year after former adviser Tom Olsen was transferred to North Creek.
“Competitive success is no guarantee,” Public Relations lead Antyush Bollini wrote in the chapter press release.
However, according to Bollini and chapter president James Peng, the chapter achieved “competitive success.”
“Competitively, we did really well,” Peng said.
Because Inglemoor is in the most competitive area in the nation, Peng believes that the chapter will perform at an excellent level at the state and national levels as well.
However, due to differences in experience, upperclassmen made up the majority of trophy winners. Only a few freshmen will be proceeding to the state level, including Kenneth Lee and Tom Holt. Holt wasn’t expecting his team to progress, he said.
“I thought we actually did pretty bad,”he said. “We didn’t know what we were doing at first.”
He attributes his success to the volumes of research he and Lee had to do to put together their seven-page document and presentation.
After reading several business plans and workshopping the document several times, the team went on to take third place in the area.
The preparations aren’t over yet — practice for the state conference will be aggressive this year. According to Bollini, competitors will be required to practice and receive feedback several times before the state conference on March 1.
The full press release, with a list of competitors and their placements, is linked below.
