Members of the Alliance Chapter of FBLA departed from the high school Wednesday April 4 to compete for the first time in Omaha at the State Leadership Conference (SLC). Ten students from Alliance traveled to compete against over 2,000 students from across Nebraska in over 30 different contests. The SLC began Thursday, April 5, and ended Saturday, April 7, with the awards ceremony.

Thursday morning, Alliance’s Chapter of FBLA went to the Nebraska Medical Center for a presentation on the various areas of job opportunities in the medical center that help the Nebraska Medical Center run smoothly.

Shortly after the presentation, the Opening General Session began at the Red Lion Hotel conference center. The session pumped up students and advisors for the weekend to come and marked the beginning of the conference.

The members that competed at the SLC were: freshman; Kelsey Horton, sophomores; Cameron Wood, Brionna Schafer, and Joel Baker, juniors; Hannah Middleton, Jensen Curtiss, Sydnie Waldron, and Zachary Placek, and seniors; Jorgen Johnson and Dylan Horton.

Friday evening, from 8-10 PM, was the Second General Session. During this time projects that were sent in before SLC received awards. Receiving runner up in the Business Ethics competition was the team of Dylan Horton, Cameron Collins, and Zachary Placek and Cameron Wood for his Graphic Design project.

The individual competitions followed the projects for awards. The top four percent of students in each test were called up on the stage to receive an award. This excluded the top eight students as they would be called on stage the following morning to see if they made it to National Leadership Conference in Baltimore, MD. The following students placed in the top four percent of their test: Jensen Curtiss: Business Calculations and Personal Finance, Brionna Schafer: Intro to Business Communications, and Dylan Horton: Personal Finance.

Alliance had one student place in the top eight for their chance to go to the National Leadership Conference at the award ceremony the following morning: senior Dylan Horton. He placed 6th in Economics.

Mrs. Harris, one of Alliance’s advisors stated, “For being our first year, I think we did very well. I had multiple people comment on how many times Alliance went on stage for an award.”

Now that students have experienced the SLC, they know what to expect next year. The whole chapter has high hopes for next year’s SLC and expects to do even better.