COVE — Nine FBLA students from the Cove and Union school districts had success at the state competition in Portland earlier this month and punched their ticket to Orlando, Florida, in June for the national competition. 

Students selected from among 77 possible categories of business and career-related events to compete in, including critical thinking and agribusiness to broadcast journalism and client services.

Those ranking first through fourth at the state level in any of the events qualify to go to the NLC in Orlando this year and compete through testing or through a demonstration of classroom concepts in a workforce-simulated, competitive environment. They can pair up and compete in demonstrations as a team, and they will also receive constructive feedback from business professionals.

The competitions FBLA students participate in at the regional, state, and national levels give them unique training opportunities to develop leadership skills and traits that will aid them into their adult careers.

Cove sending four to nationals

Cove School District has four students who qualified for the 2024 FBLA National Leadership Conference, Tanner Rovey, Esther Elmer, Kendra Mansveld and Ally Gettman. Their FBLA advisor is Candy McGilvray.

Rovey is a junior this year at Cove High School, and he has been in FBLA since his freshman year. Last year and this year, he has held the office of FBLA state vice president of service.

“I was the first officer that Cove has had,” he said.

For this year’s State FBLA Leadership Conference in Portland, Rovey competed in the agribusiness event by taking a test consisting of 100 multiple choice questions. He had 50 minutes to complete it, and he placed third. The high ranking qualified him for Orlando and he’s going to attend, his second time in the last two years.

For the past three years, Rovey has strategically chosen the agribusiness event, because of his interest and familiarity with it.

“I’ve grown up on the Grande Ronde Dairy, a goat dairy where we’ve raised and milked over 1,000 dairy goats,” he said. “I’ve developed a passion for the industry and I want to continue. I want to study dairy at the University of Idaho, get a degree and come back and one day own my own dairy.”

Rovey said FBLA has helped him grow as a leader and has prepared him for his future by developing confidence and public speaking skills.

Elmer, a first year FBLA student and a sophomore, qualified for nationals after she attended state competitions and placed second in the client services event and fourth in the job interview event. Both events were demonstration competitions.

At nationals, Elmer plans to compete again in the client services event. At this conference, the top-10 students are recognized, and the four highest ranking students are awarded plaques.

Even after one school year of FBLA, Elmer has experienced benefits from her FBLA training and opportunities.

“I’ve watched myself grow and be more confident with my speaking and things I can use in my future, other than the business aspect of it,” she said.

Union qualifies five

Union School District’s FBLA is led by advisor Sara Dyche, and this year she has five qualifying FBLA students — Payton Bowers, Aspen Lathrop, and siblings Kaci Baxter, Kennedy Baxter and Jacob Baxter — for the NLC competitions in Orlando.

Kaci Baxter, a senior and valedictorian this year at Union High School, is in her second year with FBLA and she is the secretary.

“I love the competitions and our advisor,” Kaci Baxter said. “She is super awesome and the one who convinced me to get involved. I like the team building experiences we had on our trips.”

This year, she competed in the journalism test in the February EOU Regionals and in April, she competed at the State Business Leaders Conference in Portland in the broadcast journalism event. In this event, she worked as a team with her sister, Kennedy, who is in 10th grade and in her first year with FBLA.

In their presentation, the Baxter sisters were acting as news co-anchors, reporting on their school news before a panel of judges, their live audience. Using a projector with a slide show of news images, the sisters reported on what their viewers were seeing.

“I think the judges liked it,” Kennedy Baxter said. “After we were done with our presentation, our advisor said she thought we did a good job and better than some of the people she saw at nationals last year.”

It took a lot of serious practice though because they had to memorize their script, especially the week before and the day before the competition, when they made last-minute edits to their presentation.

“Being in FBLA is something that’s worth your while,” Kaci Baxter said. “It helped me create communication and team building skills. I learned that anyone can be a leader, and you can do anything that you set your mind to.”

Jacob Baxter is following his sisters’ examples in FBLA, only with a head start. He is in seventh grade and this is his introductory year to FBLA. For the state competition, he chose two competitive events, learning strategies, where he placed third, and critical thinking, where he placed fourth.

“For the critical thinking event, the judges gave me a scenario and 15 minutes to prepare and seven minutes to present,” he said. “It is a lot of pressure, but it’s still pretty fun.”

The scenario was that he had two events happening on the same day and he had to choose one to attend. Would he choose between leading an FBLA fundraiser or attending a community dance? He had to express the pros and cons of each choice. Which would he choose and why?

“I chose the fundraiser because I like FBLA better, and personally, I can’t really dance,” he said.

He has a few years and dances ahead of him to learn that, but for the immediate future, he knows that he will join FBLA again. Pointing to the benefits he reaped during his first year, he said, “I definitely improved in public speaking and coming together as a team more. The critical thinking event helped me understand things on the spot like in a job interview.”

His advice for those who are thinking about joining FBLA is “don’t think about it too hard but try to have as much fun as possible.”