MSMS competes in regional FBLA competition

26 students from MSMS qualified for the state convention in April.

Muneebah Umar
February 13, 2020

MSMS’s Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) chapter traveled to Northeast Mississippi Community College in Booneville, Mississippi, to compete in FBLA’s Northern District Leadership Conference last Thursday. They competed against over 600 students from multiple regional schools, and 26 students placed in the top six of their respective categories, qualifying for the State Leadership Conference in April.

Club sponsor, Dr. Kayla Hester, was proud of how the competition turned out for MSMS.

“I felt like MSMS performed very well in the competition. There were almost 700 competitors there from all over north Mississippi, and almost all of our students placed and qualified for state competition in April,” Hester said.

FBLA is a business competition meant to expose high school students to the complexities of the business world; however, it also aims to teach students valuable life skills regardless of whether they want to ultimately pursue business. FBLA club’s president, senior Taylor Willis, is grateful for everything FBLA taught her in her three years of competing.

“I love FBLA because I feel that it’s a great way to learn basic skills in life,” Willis said. “Take my subject area of business communications, for example. I have no intention to have a future in a business industry or setting. However, by competing in business communications, I learned skills to good etiquette and communication as well as proper letter format.”

Gina Nguyen
Students gather together to discuss their performance in their events.

FBLA is divided up into different categories, and students can choose which ones to compete in. Junior Makenna Riley chose to participate in Journalism, in which she won first place on Thursday.

“I did journalism which is an objective test over the knowledge of fundamental concepts of journalism which covers news reporting and all of that,” Riley said. “MSMS [students] outdid themselves. We all put our best effort forward and all cheered each other on. It was really great.”

Similarly, Willis felt pride towards her fellow club members and their perseverance in preparing for the competition.

“I think that MSMS did phenomenal this year,” Willis said. “The club did not have any time to hold any official meetings. However, everyone was encouraged to begin taking practice tests and studying, and we had lots of time to study on our 2-hour bus ride there.”

While there are no official plans for the state competition, Willis is determined to continue MSMS’s winning streak. That competition will be held in early April in Natchez, Miss., and MSMS will go up against the top FBLA competitors from across the state.

Nina Vo- Advertising, 1st place

Dennis Lee- Agribusiness, 1st place

Isabella Lindley- Banking & Financial Systems, 6th place

Austin Eubank- Business Calculations, 1st place

Niyah Troup- Business Calculations, 2nd place

Taylor Willis- Business Communications, 1st place

Gina Nguyen- Business Communications, 3rd place

Niyah Lockett- Business Law, 2nd place

Kresha Patel- Business Law, 4th place

Shanay Desai- Computer Applications, 1st place

Bryant Perkins- Computer Problem Solving, 3rd place

Jesse Tran- Cyber Security, 2nd place