Hamilton High School students broke school records Jan. 6 at the Southeastern Wisconsin Distributive Education Clubs of America (DECA) Career Development Conference held at Kettle Morraine High School in Wales. A record 41 Hamilton students competed at the event bringing home another record 54 medals. Other impressive highlights of Hamilton’s performance include the facts that:
- a record number of 20 students qualified for state competition;
- one team took first place overall, two took third place and two took fifth place;
- a total of 13 individuals or teams were finalists in the top ten of their competition series;
- the chapter was awarded the Acts of Kindness Award for its Adopt-A-Classroom service project;
- the chapter placed for the first time ever in the Chapter of the Year Contest coming in at ninth place; and
- students competed in 14 of 15 possible categories against 32 other schools.
The following students qualified for state competition:
- Ashley Reimer and Patrick McCaffery in travel and tourism, three medals, first place overall;
- Megan Ropiak and Claire Greenway in hospitality services, three medals, third place overall;
- Halley Greenway and Holly Rindfleisch in travel and tourism, two medals, third place overall;
- Brian Bialobrzeski in business services, two medals, fifth place overall;
- Mark Ray and Joseph Jurasovich in financial analysis, two medals, fifth place overall;
- Frank Schweiger and Joseph Bartolone in sports and entertainment, three medals, top 10 overall;
- Katherine Rodenkirk and Allison Umhoefer in hospitality services, two medals, top 10 overall;
- Clinton Loker in restaurant management, two medals, top 10 overall;
- Ryan Zahn in food marketing, one medal, top 10 overall;
- Kate Jackson in apparel and accessories, one medal, top 10 overall; and
- Anthony Gaglione in retail marketing, one medal.
The following students earned medals at the event:
- Philip Koerner in accounting applications, three medals, top 10 overall;
- Taylor Brown and Shane Kelly in financial services, two medals, top 10 overall;
- William Kerr and Benjamin Vertal in E-commerce marketing, two medals, top 10 overall;
- Holly Abel and Ashley Meinzer in E-commerce marketing, one medal ;
- Christopher Caplan and Tony D’Alessio in sports and entertainment, one medal; and
- Aimee Macpherson and Jaclyn Klafke in hospitality services, one medal.
Students qualifying for state and nationals through portfolio projects outside of district competition include Allison Umhoefer, Katherine Rodenkirk, Jasmine Dockery and Sonya Ruminski. Others who completed portfolios include Brian Bialobrzeski, Ashley Reimer, Mark Ray and Patrick McCaffrey.
While not earning any medals, Kyle Ehley in automotive services and Loralee Hall in marketing management broke the 300 score which in any previous year would have met qualifications for state competition:
State qualifiers will compete in March at the DECA State Career Development Conference in Lake Geneva. DECA is an association of marketing and management students that provides opportunities to compete in more than 50 categories related to marketing and management career development. Hamilton business education teacher Skip Hay is the DECA advisor.