Perham BPA has successful first event

The first competition for the Perham High School BPA was full of hardware and honors. This is the first year Perham High School has offered the opportunity for kids to participate in the Business Professionals of America Program and the Yellowjackets shined at a recent event in Park Rapids. 

Twelve Perham students competed at the event at Perham High School on Jan. 25. Perham’s Quincy Anderson earned first place honors in Graphic Design and was part of a team that earned first place honors for Web Design. Miley Anderson and Lydia Klettke were members of the Web Design Team as well. 

Jaxon Bain, Abbie Stewart, Clodarl Seeman, Angelina Nicholas and Klettke earned a trip to state in their computer based events. 

Bain was elected the new Executive Vice President for Region 6 BPA. Bain and Isaac Paurus earned first place honors with their Video Productions project. Margaret Frensko earned fourth place honors and will compete at state in Graphic Design as well. 

MIley Anderson is on her way to state as well after finishing fourth in the Job Interview competition. 

Perham BPA Advisor Heather Stohs said it was quite the performance for a program in its first year. BPA is the nation’s leading CTSO (Career and Technical Student Organization) for students pursuing careers in business management, information technology, finance, accounting, office administration, and other business-related career fields.

“I’m so impressed,” Stohs said. “A lot of them have never heard of BPA before and they joined without hesitation. They jumped right in and they did very well. We didn’t know what to expect, didn’t know how they would compare with other schools and obviously they compared pretty well.”

Stohs said they had 66 competitions in information technology, marketing/entrepreneurship and all sorts of areas that students can compete in and chose an event that suits them the best. There are events that are tests, skill based tests or there are judged events, according to Stohs. 

Stohs said the students worked with several different business professionals in the community in their preparation for the regional competition. 

“We had a practice competition last week where we brought in people from the community to listen to their presentations and give them feedback, so they could adjust what they have done and take that advice and improve their presentations,” Stohs said. “It’s a different amount of prep for all of the events. Some had quite a bit of preparation, some had run through practice scenarios.”

Stohs said one of her favorite parts of BPA is the students learn life skills by communicating with adults. 

Stohs said BPA is a great way to connect students with business members in the community.

“We have such a strong business community and we have a lot of businesses and business professionals that have asked how they can help,” Stohs said. “It’s so fun to bring them in as judges or bring them in to talk with students. For example, I had students in the graphic design event and we had some local graphic designers come in.”

The students that advanced to the state competition will compete on March 9-11 at the Hyatt in Minneapolis.