The word DECA means Distributive Education Clubs of America. This certain club is not just a school store, it’s about promoting marketing skills through competition and other activities such as finance, hospitality and management.

DECA is open to students enrolled in a marketing or school store course and is led by teacher Dana Boice. The Competition was this past Saturday, Jan. 9 and our school had 18 qualifiers advancing to the state conference, including: Chase Prisza, Antonios Koja, Lauren Hill, and Jordan Bianchi.

“In my first year, I felt really good.” senior Lauren Hill said. “I was so proud of myself.”

“All the hard work and preparation we put in showed on Saturday, I feel blessed with the opportunity to compete with those considered the best in Michigan,” senior Chase Prisza said.

In DECA, you can also have fun and meet many other students, whether they are from a different school or are a fellow Chieftain.

“The competition was fun,” Hill said. “because I met some new people and caught up with old friends”.

DECA has more than 200,000 members in 5,000 high school chapters from all 50 states and nine countries.  Back in 2013, the school received third place in the top ten school stores in the nation for the second straight year at DECA’s International Career development Conference. In the year of 2013, we’ve competed with 160 other enterprises across the country. Utica almost won the Gold level Certification through DECA, an award that a student applies for. This is one of the best awards at DECA, and it’s also a documentation showing how they have achieved set standards that are outlined in the guidelines.  DECA is important and it shows how to deal with the real world, business skills and how to interact with others.