Eight students from Oak Park and River Forest High School’s Business Club qualified for a national competition for DECA, or Distributive Education Clubs of America, taking place April 27 to 30 in Anaheim, Calif.

The students qualified for the event Feb. 29 and March 1 at the Illinois Career Development Conference. A total of 24 OPRF students went to this statewide competition; each performed two role-plays and took an exam in their business specialty areas.

Cristin Lombardi, a co-sponsor of business club, explained: “To advance to the nationals, students needed to rank in the top four of their respective categories. This year, eight of our students have successfully qualified [to represent] OPRF at the national level.”

Juniors Annika Pauline and Leila Ashrafi got got first place in the “Travel and Tourism” competition, and juniors Sophia Lynn (who is a staffer for Trapeze) and Sophie Welch got second place in financial team decision making (TDM). Junior Julia Mattiace and senior Ashley Mandell competed in entrepreneurship, and seniors Will Hall and Josh Wood competed in marketing; these pairs each received fourth place in their events and qualified for nationals.

“All will be attending except Josh Wood and Will Hall, who have prior commitments, meaning this is the first time ever OPRF is sending an all girls team to nationals,” Lombardi said. “This helps promote our larger initiative to increase female enrollment in our business classes at OPRF as it is currently only 30%. We hope these girls can inspire/encourage other OPRF females to join our Business Club and/or classes.” 

“When Sophie and I learned that we had placed second for financial TDM, we were super excited,” said Lynn. “I really love doing financial team decision making at DECA because it really challenges me and my partner Sophie into trying to think like we are in the business industry.”