DECA competed at the Blue Valley High School Invitational held at Johnson County Community College on Wednesday, Jan 31. Of those who attended the meet, 10 placed in the top 10.

Junior Seth Hobson, who placed second in his division, feels good about the team’s performance.

“We had a lot of people place or get really good scores in their categories,” Hobson said. “I feel like it was a solid performance.”

Despite this being his first competition of the year, senior Brady Watkins, who placed sixth in his category, felt confident going into the competition. Watkins placed sixth in his division.

“I felt pretty confident because I placed this past year at state,” Watkins said. “I’d say I had a pretty high confidence level.”

According to junior Ally Klaudt, the atmosphere at this meet was different than those in the past. She felt it “was a good learning experience going towards state.”

“This meet was supposed to mock how state was supposed to run,” Klaudt said. “There were a lot of people which made things feel a bit more serious.” Watkins believes that the upcoming addition of a business law class will help students on the test portion.

“I need to study more because of [the questions about] business law. We don’t offer [business law] here at Mill Valley which will be offered next year,” Watkins said. “There were a lot of questions about business law that I had no idea about.”

Overall, Watkins felt good about the success of the team at the competition.
“From what I saw we had a lot of members place highly in tests and a few medaled,” Watkins said. “I felt pretty good.”