Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Local DECA Teams Win State Awards
Students from Farmington and Prairie Grove high schools recently competed in the DECA State Career Development Conference in Little Rock and several brought home first, second and third place awards.
DECA, which stands for Distributive Education Clubs of America, is an international organization that prepares high school and college students for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality and management.
Students worked on projects in these careers and then presented their plans in competition at the state conference.
Students who earned the top three awards in each category qualified to compete at the International Career Development Conference in Anaheim, Calif., in April.
Both Farmington and Prairie Grove had teams who won first-place awards on the state level.
For Farmington, Tanner Green, Coleman Warren and Caleb Williams won first place for their franchise business plan. Farmington High has sponsored a DECA program for about five years and this is the first team to win a firstplace award.
The students worked with Omar Kasim, chief executive officer of Con Quesos restaurant in Fayetteville, to come up with a business plan to open another Con Quesos in Fayetteville. They met weekly with Kasim beginning in January and were putting in 10 hours and more each week, many times working on Saturdays and sometimes Sundays. Kasim served as a mentor for the students.
Their research showed they would need $410,000 to start the franchise and open a new restaurant at Steele Crossing in uptown Fayetteville near the Malco movie theater.
Caleb said they decided the restaurant would succeed in that area because the restaurant’s contemporary style appeals to highend upscale residents who want a fast, casual atmosphere.
“Millennials were our target market from the beginning,” Coleman added.
To prepare for the competition, the Farmington group presented their franchise plan to “real-life investors,” Coleman said.
At the state conference, the team presented before two judges and scored a 94 percent out of 100 percent. The goal was to persuade the two judges to invest in the franchise. The secondplace team scored 81.5 percent.
Caleb said he will participate in the state DECA competition again next year.
“This was a great experience. It was a different kind of learning. It was self- guided learning and I learned a lot about running a business,” Caleb said.
Other Farmington awards were Allison Williams, second place start-up business plan; Conner Kersey, Jake Taylor and Tyler Thomas, third place innovation plan; Kailey Larkins, Hope Davenport and Saylor Sisemore, fourth place for their advertising campaign.
Faith Strahan, Avery Roton and Matthew Haley, with the Prairie Grove DECA chapter, won first place for their presentation on sports & entertainment operations research.
Faith said her team chose to research Prairie Grove Aquatic Park to determine what the community and customers want from the public pool. With this research, they created a plan to help market the aquatic center.
Their research included a community survey, interviews with people from the community and school and reflections on their own experiences at the park.
Matthew said their research showed the pool’s appeal is that it has a nice family environment and people appreciate it. To improve the appeal, their marketing plan showed the pool should use social media to bring in more customers outside Prairie Grove, have more community events, improve the bathrooms and install additional landscaping to improve the aesthetics.
The students presented their project to two judges who were acting in the role of pool management. Their goal was to convince the judges to accept their operation plan for the pool.
Other Prairie Grove awards were Cameryn Curtsinger and Andrea Hankins, fifth place buying and merchandising, and Zeke Laird, fifth place hotel lodging and management. Coral Prince and Taylor Caudle presented a fashion merchandising plan.