Fifteen Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) students and two advisors competed and attended the Pennsylvania FBLA State Leadership Conference in Hershey, April 7-10, joining 276 FBLA chapters across the state.
Students qualified to attend by placing in the top 5 in the regional competition in January 2024. Two students, Helene Addink and Ellie Kim, advanced to the final performance round of the state competition after placing in the preliminary round.
North Hills students also participated in the evening Opening Session and Awards of Excellence Ceremony at the Hershey Giant Center. They took advantage of the many opportunities offered at the conference including a college and career expo; a variety of career, success and skill-building workshops; and viewing student performance events.
Students also had the opportunity to have some fun at Hershey Park prior to the conference start, and they visited Chocolate World as well.
Three students participated in Hershey’s marketing study taste-test and provided feedback on one of Hershey’s possible candy bars.
At the opening ceremony, North Hills High School received many honors including:
- 8th place for State Project Top Fundraising Chapters. North Hills’ state project was November’s Big Cookie Sale during which $1,648.80 was donated to Pennsylvania Special Olympics.
- 10th place for the Big 33 Community Service Award. As a chapter, North Hills logged over 852 hours. Individually, senior Maggie Mollenauer earned 5th place among 5,000 members for her 225 hours of community service!
- Five of our members were recognized for acceptance into the National Business Honor Society-PA FBLA Chapter: Eli Dicken, Dylan Garland, Kylie Good, Owen Mollenauer and Graham Woodside. Students must have a 3.5 GPA, demonstrated leadership, clearly defined career objectives, and completed at least two semesters of business courses with a 3.5+ GPA to qualify to apply.
- Two of our students participated in optional Open Competitive events and placed in the top 10. Emily Pec earned 4th place in “Behavioral Economics” and Eli Dicken placed 9th in ”Social Media in Business and Society.”
The awards continued at the Awards Ceremony of Excellence where the top 10 competitors in each event were called to the stage to receive their awards:
Congratulations to the following students:
- Izabela Czechowski, 9th place, Accounting 1
- Graham Woodside, 6th place, Accounting 2
- Jacob Specht, 4th place*, Accounting 2
- Helene Addink, 9th Place, Electronic Career Portfolio
- Ellie Kim, 9th Place, Introduction to Programming
For his fourth place finish, Jacob Specht advances to the National Leadership Conference/Competition in Orlando, Florida this summer. The top four finishers advance.
“Our students made us proud and enjoyed the conference,” said FBLA co-sponsor Kellee Kanith. “They are excited to bring back what they learned to share with our members and continue to make our North Hills FBLA Chapter even more successful!"