Worthington, Hardwick students earn top marks, can compete in national BPA contest

Kari Lucin, The Daily Globe, Worthington, Minn.
·2 min read

Mar. 11—WORTHINGTON — Two local students earned high marks in the 2023 Business Professionals of America College Division State Leadership Conference, and are eligible to attend the BPA National Leadership Conference in Anaheim, California, in April.

Cristina Magaña, a Worthington High School alumna, is currently studying at Minnesota State University, Mankato, and placed first in the Graphic Design Promotion contest.

"At the moment, I'm doing music education as my major, and I am minoring in studio art and graphic design," Magaña said, noting that she's currently taking a graphic design class and learning the ins and outs of the Adobe suite — an industry standard for graphic designers.

Magaña's former WHS BPA Coach, Penny Troe, let her know there was a postsecondary BPA competition for college students, and given Magaña's participation in Graphic Design Promotion, she signed up for the event. She'd originally planned to compete in person, but ended up presenting her work via Zoom.

For the contest, she was given a prompt to create promotional designs for a laptop case, phone case, and a water bottle sticker, all promoting an upcoming conference for an imaginary company called "Games R Us."

Magaña, who also competed with the WHS Esports team during her high school years, created a video-game-inspired design to promote the conference, then presented it to the judges. The process took about two weeks, and Magaña said she intends to tweak the design when she receives feedback from the judges at the state competition, which is permitted by the rules of the game.

"It's been a lot of fun. I've been really enjoying it," she said. "I'm really glad that I ended up doing BPA again in college."

She's also hoping to start a full BPA chapter at MSUM, which doesn't have one yet. So far, she has seven of the 10 participants she'll need.

Many of the BPA events relate to subjects and majors students are already learning about during their classes, Magaña said, and it's also a good experience to compete against peers. BPA also offers an opportunity to connect with people at the state and national level.

"I really like being able to work with someone and bringing someone else's idea to life," Magaña said. "I like creating, and I like being creative."

She'll be doing that again for nationals.

Macy DeSplinter, of Hardwick, earned second place in the Interview Skills competition and also the Meeting and Event Planning Concepts open event. She, too, is eligible to attend the national conference in California.

DeSplinter currently attends Minnesota West Community and Technical College online. She is studying for an associate degree in business management.

"I earned my GED after 12 years of being out of school," DeSplinter said. "You can achieve big goals at many stages of life."