Local BPA team excels at state competition

BILLINGS – The Superior High School Business Professionals of America team had the opportunity to showcase their talents two weeks ago at the state competition in Billings.

The competition afforded them the chance to show what they had learned over the course of the school year and to test their mettle against teams from across the state of Montana.

BPA coordinator Jaime Toivonen said she was impressed with how the team performed under the pressure.

“It went well,” Toivonen said. “We had a ninth place finisher and an eighth place finisher. Our broadcast news team placed tenth. Our parliamentary procedure team got eighth place.”

Toivonen said the response from the students who participated was completely positive.

She said all the BPA students found the experience worthwhile and useful for tuning up their projects for next year.

“They loved it,” Toivonen said. “We had three freshmen go and they are already gung-ho to go back next year. They have a lot of ideas about what they want to do next year. There’s so many things they can do that they are really excited.”

Senior Mackenzie Stager qualified for the national competition and Toivonen said she was already planning to attend the event in Anaheim, CA in a few weeks.

“They all competed very well,” Toivonen said. “It was a great experience. We are definitely excited about competing next year. We are the smallest region in the state by far. We are about 50 kids less than the next smallest region. We had some fantastic competitors from our region this year so that was great to see.”