On Saturday, January 11^th, the Future Business Leaders (FBLA) from Tuscarora competed in the Region 1 Competition at Dr. Henry A Wise Jr. High School in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Fifteen students made it to the competition, all ranging from freshman to seniors. And 16 of the 20 students in FBLA qualified for the upcoming state competition in March taking place in Baltimore.

According the advisor of Tuscarora’s FBLA, Ms. Jorgensen, and the students of the club, each competition has a performance event or a written test. Lorris Nzouakeu, a freshman of the club, did the public speaking portion of the event. According to Lorris, those participating in a public speaking perform in front of a judge. The judge scores them, while they’re out of the room, and that score. For those doing the written portion, their score ranks against all the other scores in our region and they placed based on that score.

Each competition doesn’t specialize in just one category, but multiple. For example, Akbar Khan won 1^st in accounting, Elijah Fredericks placed 2^nd in Advertising, and Amanda Puentes placed 5^th in Business calculations. There are many different categories which relate to business and entrepreneurship in which students can compete, and these categories they compete in help translate into their college/career goals. And more business-related categories are being added to competition, Ms. Jorgensen says “FBLA is adapting, so now they’ve added events like political science because you can relate economics to political science.” Here is a list of the FBLA students and the categories they competed in:

(President) Akbar Khan, 12th grade: Accounting 1: 2nd place
Ahmed Khan, 12th grade: Accounting 1: 4th place
Oscar Barrueta, 12th grade: Advertising: 2nd place
Elijah Fredericks, 12th grade: Advertising: 2nd place
Ethan Tu, 12th grade: Advertising: 5th place
Amanda Puentes, 9th grade : Business Calculations: 5th place
(Historian) Umah Ali and (Parliamentarian) Ryan Barrick, 12th grade: Hospitality Management: 4th place
Hamza Aurangzeb: Introduction to Business: 4th place
Annabelle Sickles, 9th grade: Introduction to Business: 5th place
Kailey Raymond, 11th grade : Journalism: 4th place
Kellen Parks-Gardener, 12th grade: Political Science: 1st place

Brent Peate, 11th grade: Political Science: 3rd place
Samiha Vali, 9th grade: Political Science: 5th place
Andrew Kabirtsi, 9th grade: Securities and Investments: 3rd place
Lorris Nzouakeu, 9th grade: Public Speaking: 2nd place

I asked who the target audience of FBLA was, and the whole team responded with “anyone.” It is a good organization to build on your career interests and is open to “anyone who’s interested in entrepreneurship,” Brent Peate says. And not only does FBLA give students a chance to build on their career interests, but exercise leadership through officer positions. For example, the FBLA President is Akbar Khan, the Vice President is Cherie Jonson, the Treasurer is Humza Aurangzeb, the Secretary is Milca Barou, the Historian is Umah Ali, and the Parliamentarian is Ryan Barrick.

Almost the whole team qualifies for the upcoming state competition and are aiming for Nationals which takes place over summer. According to Ms. Jorgensen, Tuscarora’s FBLA students have not yet qualified for Nationals in the three years she has been the advisor, “we are hoping this year will be our lucky year for that” and because the team did so well the most recent competition, there is no doubt they’ll do good at the state competition.

We wish Ms. Jorgensen and all of the FBLA students of Tuscarora good luck!

Anyone interested in joining FBLA, Ms. Jorgenson is in room B203.