Eleven members of the Owensville DECA Chapter of Missouri DECA joined 1,500-plus high school business, finance, hospitality, and marketing students at the annual association career development conference held March 23-25 at the Crown Center in Kansas City, Mo.

The following students received recognition of individual ability and achievement at the association level:

Carly Julius placed first overall with her Community Giving Project and advances to international-level competition at the DECA International Career Development Conference scheduled April 26-29 in Orlando, Fla.

Kaydin Carr placed in the top 10 for a Community Awareness Project.

Jenna Hoffman and Carly Copeland also placed in the top 10 with their  Business Solutions Project.

As an integral part of the classroom curriculum, DECA’s industry-validated competitive events are aligned with the National Curriculum Standards in the career clusters of marketing, business management and administration, finance, and hospitality and tourism. DECA’s competitive events directly contribute to every student being college and career-ready when they graduate from high school. More than 155 business professionals evaluated the members’ performance in the format of role-plays, case studies, and prepared presentations.

DECA is a career and technical student organization that prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs with a career interest in marketing, finance, hospitality, and management. DECA enhances the preparation for college and careers by providing co-curricular programs that integrate into classroom instruction, apply learning, connect to business, and promote competition. DECA student members leverage their DECA experience to become academically prepared, community-oriented, professionally responsible, and experienced leaders. DECA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with over 287,000 members in more than 4,000 high school and college chapters in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Germany.