Sophomore Rachel Stein said she competed for her second time this year at the DECA District Conference.

“I did it last year, so I knew what I was doing better this year because last year I literally had no clue, and I was so confused,” Stein said. “This year I felt a little bit more confident. I competed in Human Resources Management and sales demonstration hard line (sales), and I’m going to State for both of my events.”

According to DECA adviser Sophia Ross, the competition at State will be more challenging for the 12 members of Park’s DECA chapter that will be moving on to State.

“There’s seven districts in Minnesota, and it’s the top competitors from each district,” Ross said. “They will be the same events as the District competition and advancing in the competition is going to be harder.”

Ross said DECA members will use feedback from the District competition to improve their skills and ensure success at State.

“They have received their evaluation sheets back, so we look at the evaluation sheet and figure out where they need to improve in their presentation skills,” Ross said. “We also have some volunteers in our community who are going to listen to the presentations and give them some feedback as well, so just doing some more critiquing of what they have already been working on.”

Freshman Ayelet Prottas, who is moving on to State, said she will use her experience at the District competition to prepare for State.

“Now that I’ve already experienced the competition and know what to expect, I have to go back in and refine my presentation,” Prottas said. “During the competition, they gave me a scorecard; I have the information of how I scored, and they gave me a list of things that I can do better.”

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Prottas said she competed in a sales demonstration where she tried to sell a softball bat.

“Basically, what you have to do is pick an item and roleplay with a judge. You pretend you’re in a store or in some sort of sales setting, and then you sell your product,” Prottas said. “I sold a softball bat, and I had to figure out the logistics and everything about the softball bat, so I would be informed to talk about it.”

Stein said at the District competition, Jan. 27-28, she overcame a challenge in her sales demonstration event.

“I got to sell gymnastics grips, so that was cool to interact with the judge in that way, and I got to talk to them about gymnastics and how grips work,” Stein said. “It was also challenging because I had a male judge, and I was trying to sell them grips for female gymnasts, so I had to work on that.”

Stein said the Human Resources management event was a role-play that she was given at the competition.

“For human resources, I had a scenario, and I had 10 minutes to read over it and come up with a plan on how to solve it and then present it to the judge, and the judge would act like they were the president of a company,” Stein said.

According to Stein, members of DECA that placed in the District competition will be moving on to the DECA State competition.

“(To go to State) you had to place top 12 in your event,” Stein said. “In Human Resources, I was eleventh so I just made it, and in sales demonstration, I was third, so that one went much better.”

According to Ross, State will be March 3-5.