On April 22, 11 DECA students from North will be headed to Nashville for DECA internationals. Six students qualified for the competition through their competitive events at State competition. The students included Sami Sneed, Karley McCarthy, Nic Savala, Julia Crets, Jessica Biondo and Meghan Mitchell. Their competitive events ranged from Business Services to Food Marketing. The other five students traveling to ICDC include Anthony Lupo, Missouri DECA State President, and his campaign team. Jordan Galkowski, Anna Chowning, Jacob Dehasa and Kevin Welch will be attending the conference to campaign on Anthony’s behalf.

“I was extremely excited when I placed at State and I can’t wait to compete at the international level,” Mitchell said. 

Lupo will be running for Central Region Vice President at the conference. He has put countless hours into planning his campaign, and raised funds for it through GoFundMe.com and donations. His campaign team will be running a booth to interact with DECA members at the conference. The booth will include a photo booth, a slideshow of Lupo’s goals for Central Region and campaign materials. His team will be meeting with voting delegates to share Lupo’s campaign goals and help win him votes.

“My team and I have put a lot time into preparing for this conference,” Lupo said. “I’m looking forward to seeing how the election turns out.”

In addition to competing and campaigning, the members will be participating in a variety of fun activities while on the trip. Thier plans include a local baseball game, similar to the River City Rascals. They also plan on attending a country concert at the Grand Ole Opry, put on by DECA inc. The headliner of the concert has not been announced yet, the secret is being used to build anticipation for the conference. The group will also be headed to a Saloon for line dancing. They’ll be going out for celebratory dinners while on the trip.

“I’m really excited to go the Grand Ole Opry because it’s an iconic landmark,” advisor Melissa Trochim said. “The kids have worked so hard for this and they deserve to have some fun.”