Four Panthers attend leadership conference in Billings

Secondary students from across the state of Montana attended the 2017 State Leadership Conference for the Mon-tana Association of Business Professionals of America in Billings, Montana, March 12-14, 2017.

The 2017 Montana BPA State Leadership Conference was held at Montana State University-Billings, Radisson Ho-tel and Convention Center, and the Red Lion Hotel and Convention Center. One thousand two hundred and forty-nine students, local chapter advisors, and chaperones gathered in a spirit of friendship and goodwill as the Montana Association assisted the members through participation in the areas of competitive events, leadership, community development, and professionalism.

During the three-day event, students demonstrated their knowledge in business and technological skills and abilities in over 60 different competitive events from within the five core assessment areas of Finance, Business Administra-tion, Management Information Systems, Digital Communication & Design, and Management, Marketing & Com-munication. The top finalists in each event advance to compete at the National Leadership Conference this spring in Orlando, Florida from May 10-13, 2017.

Christian Menge, Chandler Pippin, Christopher DePuydt, and Devon Salveson from the Saco High School Chapter of Business Professionals of America (BPA) attended the 3-day conference and were chaperoned by local BPA Chapter Advisor Kelly Downing. The four boys competed in numerous business-related events, attended four Gen-eral Sessions, acted as voting delegates (Christopher DePuydt and Chandler Pippin) for the upcoming “State Officers” election, attended the Statesman Torch Award Ceremony (Devon Salveson, Chandler Pippin, and Christopher DePuydt all received Statesman Torch Awards, along with 116 other Montana students), and participated in the first ever “Special Olympics Walk” which earned thousands of dollars for our Montana Special Olympians who will compete at the “State Meet” in Missoula in May. The state conference also included keynote Ryan Moran and vari-ous workshops on topics including entrepreneurship, traffic safety, leadership development and dance.

At the culminating Awards Ceremony Tuesday morning, the Saco BPA Chapter received the following awards:

Chandler Pippin: 1st place-Computer Network Technology, 8th-Business Law & Ethics, 15th—PC Servicing & Troubleshooting

Chris DePuydt: 9th place-Banking & Finance; 11th-Business Law & Ethics

Devon Salveson: 2nd place-Computer Network Technology; 3rd PC Servicing & Troubleshooting, & 14th in Business Law & Ethics

Christian Menge: 20th place-PC Servicing &Troubleshooting

On Monday evening, in eight “Open” events which all students are able to compete in and 100’s of students do par-ticipate in, the Saco students placed accordingly: Devon & Chandler—3rd and 4th respectively in Information Technology Concepts; Chandler—4th in Administrative Support Concepts, 11th in Management, Marketing & Hu-man Resources Concepts, and 17th in Computer Programming Concepts; Christopher--14th in Financial Math & Analysis.

Devon, Chandler, and Christopher all qualified in various events for the National Conference in May in Orlando, Florida, and will attend with Chapter Advisor Kelly Downing.

Natalie Schaff from Roundup High School was recognized as the Montana BPA Advisor of the Year and will now compete for the National BPA Advisor of the Year.

Business Professionals of America is the leading CTSO (Career Technical Student Organization) for students pursu-ing careers in business management, finance, office administration, information technology and other related career fields. BPA has more than 44,000 members in over 1,700 chapters in 24 states. BPA is a "co-curricular" organiza-tion that supports business and information technology educators by offering curriculum based on national stand-ards. This year, the Montana association has 1,726 members and 90 chapters. Our Montana post-secondary chapters from MSU-Northern, Flathead Valley Community College and Montana Virtual Chapters have 18 total members.