The DECA team traveled to San Antonio to compete at the state level on March 3-5. The team competed with over 4,400 students in a variety of events created to teach skills necessary for careers in business. Six students qualified as finalists: seniors Michael Murphy, Odin Contreras, Marisol Aguilar, Daylan O’Neal, Ravon Cornelius and Isaiah Germany. O’Neal won state and will be representing Texas High at the international conference in Anahiem, California in April.

“I’ve never been to California, but I’ve always heard that it’s beautiful,” O’Neal said. “I’m also super honored to get to represent Texas at a competition with people from all around the world.”

O’Neal competed in Financial Consulting and gave a presentation comparing buying a new car versus a used car. He also had to prepare for a test over aspects of financial consulting.

“I had to create a presentation over my opinion on whether my ‘client’–the judge–should purchase or lease a new car,” O’Neal said. “It was really nerve racking because it was just myself and the judge, but my judge was really encouraging and professional, which made it easier to present as well as possible.”

Aguilar, Cornelius and Germany completed an Entrepreneurship Promotion project.

“Our project involved entrepreneurs at our school and gave them more awareness of what all it provides,” Aguilar said. “We invited Jessica from Luna’s Boutique to the classroom to give us a few tips about entrepreneurship and leadership, and then we had a showcase of entrepreneurs at the school, like Michael and Odin and a few other people, and we set it up in the cafeteria.”

Contreras and Murphy competed in Entrepreneurship Business Plan, in which they created a proposal for a business and presented it to a “bank” in order to get a loan.

“We typed up the proposal and told the bank loan person how we started our business, why we did this, and the numbers behind it, like how much income were going tobe making and the successes of it,” Contreras said. “We made this clothing company called Noloj, which is actually Michael’s real clothing company. We did the project to give him more experience he would need to run a business and so he could learn what it would take to start a business. Doing competition and everything has taught me how to brainstrom well and how to be professional and really prepared me for the work force.”