The FBLA or “Future Business Leaders of America” is a club here at THS that focuses on (obviously) business and entrepreneurship. You may recognize them from the pizza slices they sell on Main st. from time to time. When they’re not busy dishing out delicious pizza, the club meets regularly and also take tests about business and the scores of those tests determine whether or not the students qualify for regional/state/ or even national competition.

This year three members of the FBLA attended the state level competitions that began last Thursday (03-28-19) and concluded on Saturday (03-30-19). Conner Preston (12^th grade) competed in the marketing event. He was required to first take a test to qualify then competed in front of a panel of judges where he was given a topic and then had to forumulate his own thoughts on the given topics and defend his viewpoints, his score was based on how well the judges believed he responded to the given prompt and how well he defended his response. This was Connor’s first time in FBLA so it’s quite impressive that he ended up coming in 10^th in the entire state. Akbar Khan (grade 11) president of the club competed in the economics testing event for the second time and placed 5th in the state! Unfortunately only the top 4 places qualify for Nationals, but he’ll be back his senior year and is hoping to qualify for nationals. Hamza Aurangzeb (grade 9) is new to FBLA since he is a freshman, Sadly he did not place but he learned a great deal from the experience.

In addition to the competitions there are also many different activities from guest speakers to interactive exhibits. Ms. Jorgensen’s favorite speaker was named Frank Van Vliet who spoke at length about ethics in marketing. There was even one speaker who read peoples’ minds! All in all it was a rewarding and challenging experience for our young business leaders at THS.

If you are interested in learning more about FBLA or possibly joining, please see Ms. Jorgensen.