• Laramie High School club, DECA, has begun meetings to start preparation for their upcoming competitions and meets.
    DECA recently held a bonding meeting to tie dye with their team to go over the basics of the competition for the new members of the club.The club had this meeting as mostly a bonding experience for the homecoming dress up day on September 28. They also used the time to focus on learning proper technique for their competitions.
    In October, DECA will go to Casper for MEC in which they will present on their respective
    business interest and marketing section. At these competitions, students will go into a role play
    scenario where they solve a business-related problem. They are then given a score based on how
    well they performed in the respective situation.
    Their competitions are based on past scores and how well they scored on a marketing cluster
    exam.
    At the competition in Casper, “[judges give the] top performers awards, which are for the
    top 3 out of each group of 10. And usually there would be actual rankings but MEC is more like
    a practice competition,” LHS DECA member Robin Gloss said.
    MEC holds workshops after the performances. These workshops build leadership skills as well
    as marketing and problem-solving skills. These workshops give students feedback on how to
    better improve their skills to refine their performances in further performances.
    Last year the LHS DECA team went to Anaheim, California for the DECA National Convention (ICDC). One of our Laramie students placed first in their subject at this event.
    Each student performed two role plays and if they performed in the top ten with their test score
    and role play, they will perform an additional role play. Robin Gloss performed just short of the
    top 30 students in her topic, which had over 100 students from around the country, with her role
    play and test score for Marketing Communications Series, which focuses on “how to best market
    various things”. In addition to going to this competition, they got to travel to different theme
    parks in California and different shops.