East Jordan BPA chapter to head to California for national conference
EAST JORDAN — When Sierra Roberts Dunlop was a student at East Jordan High School, she was one of the first members of the school’s chapter of Business Professionals of America, or BPA. Now, she’s the club’s adviser.
“It was cool that I was one of the first people in our program and now I'm running our program,” she said.
Now, seven members of the 43-person middle and high school chapter are set to head to Anaheim, California for their nationals competition at the end of April during the 2023 BPA National Leadership Conference. The conference will be April 25-30.
Roberts Dunlop said that it used to be rare for the school to have students making it to the national stage, and if anyone qualified for nationals, it would usually be just one student. But as the group grows, the more success they seem to have.
“I just think it makes our program look awesome, it's awesome for our school, and we're making a name for ourselves in our region, whereas before, we really weren't big competitors,” Roberts Dunlop said. “But the more our chapter grows and the more confident our kids are getting and the more I learn about each event, the more qualified we are to make it to Nationals.”
With events ranging from interview skills to Microsoft Office use, BPA is a way to introduce students to the world of business.
An expected 6,000 delegates from across the country will be competing for top honors in business, marketing, finance and health administration skills. The conference will also have leadership and professional development workshops.
The 2023-2024 national student leadership team will also be elected at the conference.
As a business teacher, Roberts Dunlop said it’s important to her that she is preparing students for their futures, and since the BPA was able to open a middle school chapter, she’s happy that she can start doing that with students as young as seventh grade.
"It makes me feel good about what we're teaching our kids,” she said. “I've always been a huge advocate for making sure that kids are prepared after high school for their futures.”
As the BPA chapter president, and one of the students going to Nationals, Kamryn Webb said making it to nationals has been her goal since she joined the group.
“It's super exciting,” Webb said. “I've been doing BPA since I was a freshman and that's always been the goal is to make it to Nationals and get to travel with my friends, so I’m really excited, and really grateful for the opportunity.”
This is her first year making it to nationals, she said.
“I'm really grateful and proud because I have been working at this for four years,” Webb said. "It's made little me happy for sure.”
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The students attending the conference for the district are William Webb, Financial Literacy, Extemporaneous Speech, Business Math; Lila Kelly, Business Law and Ethics, Meeting & Event Planning Concepts; Izzy Boyer, Advanced Word Processing; Kamryn Webb, Administrative Support Concepts; Alyssa Sherman, Advanced Desktop Publishing; Mailey Hamilton, Ambassador Torch Award; and Nick Bascom, Digital Media Production.
—Contact education reporter Karly Graham at kgraham@petoskeynews.com. Follow her on Twitter at @KarlyGrahamJRN.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: East Jordan students to head to California for business conference
