(Photo provided by DECA website)

JCCC’s DECA team participated in two state tournaments in February with one student, Jeremiah Reed, placing third in the Kansas State competition in the Professional Sales category. The team has only six members with five of them competing in the Kansas State tournament, and only two competing in the Missouri State tournament.

They prepared twice a week to compete in the International Career Development Conference (ICDC) that took place in April. In the sports marketing category, two students, Jeremiah Reed and Nahome Kedebe were finalists, as well as Marissa Durkin who was a finalist in the Retail Management category. 

There are multiple categories that a DECA member can choose to compete in. To compete, members would create a business solution or a case study to present to a small panel of judges who are experts in the category chosen. Members can compete individually or in teams.

DECA stands for Distributive Education Clubs of America. This club has been on the JCCC campus for three years, guiding students in things like marketing, finance, business administration, and accounting. DECA is all about teaching and building up the future leaders and entrepreneurs of this generation.

DECA’s advisor, Aaron Hollister, spoke about what DECA is.

“It’s focused on marketing, business administration, accounting, finance and within that we[‘ve] got human resources, management, fashion merchandising, so there’s a few different categories, but the club itself is focused around professional development for career focused programs,” Hollister said. “We compete as well as have opportunities for professional development with and through DECA.”

He also wanted to thank the Student Senate for their contributions to DECA for supporting the team and making it possible for them to travel to their competitions. 

If you are interested in joining the DECA team, reach out to Aaron Hollister by email at ahollis3@jccc.edu. Or, find him at his office in GEB 302.