Holyoke sending 14 to FBLA nationals in Atlanta, Georgia

On April 4, Lori Nelson, business education teacher and FBLA adviser at Holyoke High School, and 49 of Holyoke’s Future Business Leaders of America traveled to the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Conservation Center in Aurora for three days of competition with over 3,000 other students at the 2023 FBLA State Leadership Conference.

“It went really well,” Nelson said. “All the schools around us have zero to one students going [to nationals], and we have 14. So that’s pretty good.”

According to Nelson, one of the reasons for this difference is that she requires her students to come in on Fridays to work on their projects. Additionally, she no longer has any of her own children living with her, which gives her more time to work with her students. 

At the conference, the students participated in workshops, presentations and tests spanning myriad subjects from accounting to business ethics to personal finance, and much more. At the end of the conference there was time for more relaxed activities such as swimming, games and a performance by a hypnotist. 

“All of these kids had competitions that they got called for and went into the preliminaries, did presentations, and then they had to make it to the finals,” Nelson said. “Finals were at 5 in the morning, and then they had to start presenting again at 8, so a lot of those I didn’t require that they went to as much.” 

Nelson told her students they had to participate in four events total; for example, if they had one test to take, they had to do three workshops. Some of them did two presentations, so they didn’t get to as many workshops. “And Ben Kleve, my state officer, was in interviews pretty much the entire time, so I don’t think he was able to get to any of the other things.” She noted that her students were thrilled when they came back from the workshops, and they enjoyed most all of them and found them to be very beneficial.

“Now we can concentrate on getting ready for nationals,” Nelson said. “We have to buy airline tickets and start getting an itinerary together.” 

The nationals conference will take place in Atlanta, Georgia, the last week of June. 

Chapter member Piper McConachie recounted her experience at one of the workshops, which consisted mainly of students asking questions about what to expect at college, how to find friends, and how to balance sports, classes and work opportunities, being that most of them were coming from a small-town background. 

“It took about an hour for everyone to get their questions answered,” McConachie said, “and then we did this game, I think it was called Matchmaker, where one person went up and everybody had to stand up, and they had to say all the characteristics of what they want. And then if you didn’t fit those characteristics you had to sit down, and then finally you found your match.” 

She added that one of the students from another school said, “If you read books, sit down,” which she found an interesting choice. 

“I was like ... dude,” she said, grinning. “And then you got to sign your name on a card and put it into a drawing for prizes, like an Alexa, a suitcase or a gift basket.”

Hannah Lindholm, another nationals qualifier, discussed a workshop on financial literacy she attended with classmate Elly Brown. 

“It went over the importance of finances as you get older and how to balance budgets,” she said. “The workshop leader owns about three businesses, she’s part of FBLA PBL, so it was really cool listening to her. She asked us what our plans were, she talked for about 30 minutes and let us ask questions about college and FBLA at the PBL level.”

Jimena Nuñez, whose group placed second in Partnership with Business, recalled an opportunity for students to have a “meet and greet” with representatives of new up-and-coming businesses in the area.

“I got to talk with someone from the lead school of business from Boulder, somebody from the Daniel’s Fund Scholarship and some new app developers,” Nuñez said. “So we got to meet a bunch of new people and got to learn what’s out there besides FBLA and college, and where FBLA can get you.”

 Those placing in the Top 10 included Ben Austin in Spreadsheet Applications, Piper McConachie in Accounting II and Teagan Martin in Computer Applications.  

Those placing in the Top 4 and qualifying for nationals included Ben Kleve, first place in Introduction to Business Concepts; Ethan Schneller, Tayla Martin and Teagan Martin, first place in Community Service Project; Lucinda Mares, second place in Introduction to Parliamentary Procedure; Jimena Nuñez, Hannah Lindholm and Fatima Nuñez, second place in Partnership with Business; Carter Van Overbeke, Caden Sporhase and Jaxson Hutches, second place in American Enterprise Project; and Piper McConachie, Kyrah McConachie and Daniela Fierro, third place in Local Chapter Annual Business Report. Ethan Schneller also placed second in Accounting II. 

Ben Kleve ran for Colorado State Officer against 25 others and earned a spot as District 4 State Officer.

Sponsors of the state conference included Lori Nelson, Kody Timm, Charlee Kleve, Colbey Stumpf and Summer Struckmeyer.