BOX ELDER — Eight of the nearly 400 students at Box Elder School, all of them in eighth grade, attended the Business Professionals of America National Leadership Conference in Anaheim, California a few weeks ago.
All eight students placed high enough to be recognized with hardware.
“They announced us out and they said our name and the place. And they said, first place. And it was pretty fun,” says Ayden Descharm, one of a group of three Box Elder students who were recognized as National Champions in their event.
Descharm, Braydon Wolfchief, and Payton Tsosie, proposed their idea for a Native American food truck.
“We picked that because we didn't think anyone else would take it, and that's new to the judges. We would sell our native Native American food, Indian tacos and stuff like that,” says Descharm.
“It was really cool, I felt a lot of pride in representing my community,” says Wolfchief.
Martay Rosette, Mikaylee Houle, and Kortsin Parker were recognized with second place in their category, team virtual promotion video. They tasked themselves with finding solutions to increasing commerce in the Havre area, and the judges were clearly left with an impression.
“We made it. We did it. Out of 6000 people, we took second in that event. It felt pretty good representing the Box Elder Bears,” says Parker.
“It felt really nice to represent our people,” says Rosette.
Both Santana Wells and David Morsette placed in solo competition, Wells placing second and Morsette third.
“As a student, I think it really pushed me to work harder, you know, push myself to do more for, work, because if I didn't push myself as much as I did, I would not have made it to nationals,” says Wells.
Wells says he hopes to continue attending the Business Professionals of America into his years as a high schooler.
“I heard it’s a lot more competitive, so it just means I have to work harder as a BPA member to actually get to Nationals again, but I'm up for the challenge.”
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