Chesterton Business Students Win Top Awards

Chesterton-Business-Top-State-1Ten students at Chesterton High School won top awards at the Business Professionals of America state contest in Indianapolis on March 18 and 19. These 10 have qualified to compete at the national contest in Chicago in April. Those students are Eric Dreischerf, Sam Fadel, Nathan Finke, Austin Johnson, Will Levi, Brian Miller, Jake Daxe Pullins, Jacob Pruitt, Trent Schreiber and Jon Vincent.

Dreischerf (11) won first place in the Extemporaneous Speech contest. He was also elected at the state contest to serve on the BPA State Officer Leadership Team for the next school year. Michael Leopold (12) served as his campaign manager.

Sam Fadel (12) won first place in Legal Office Procedures; Finke (11) first place in Fundamental Accounting and fifth place in Payroll Accounting; Johnson (12) second place in Payroll Accounting and third place in the Fundamental Spreadsheets event; Levi (11) fifth place in Fundamental Accounting; Miller (11) first place in Advanced Accounting and second place in Computerized Accounting; Pullins (12) fourth place in Banking and Finance; Pruitt (12) second place in Human Resource Management; Schreiber (12) second place in Advanced Accounting; and Vincent (12) second place in the Economic Research Project Individual event.

Chesterton-Business-Top-State-2Others who won at the state event include Jerry Nagra (12) seventh place in Fundamental Accounting; Linda Graff (12) tenth place in Advanced Accounting; Mitch Winey (10) seventh place in Advanced Office Systems and Procedures, and Kevin Fekete (11) eighth place award for Computer Security. The Financial Analyst Team of Christian O'Brien (11), Sam Fadel, Sam Iatarola (11) and Mike Thanos (11) advanced into the final round to receive a fourth place team award. The Economic Research Team of Jon Vincent, Matt Jones (12), Jacob Pruitt and Sean Miller (12) also received a fourth place award.

Recipients of award medals for optional contest events included Jon Vincent with a first in Parliamentary Procedures, fifth in Business Meeting Management, seventh in Financial Math, ninth in Management, Marketing, and Human Resources, and tenth in Insurance Concepts. Other winners were: Austin Johnson seventh in Insurance Concepts and eighth in Management, Marketing, and Human Resources; Sean Miller first in Management, Marketing, and Human Resources; and Matt Jones seventh place in Business Meeting Management.

The Chesterton High School chapter of Business Professionals of America has 74 student members this year. Of those, 65 attended the district contest, 48 attended the state contest, and 10 advanced to nationals. Any Chesterton High School student is eligible to join BPA in the fall. Rebecca Gierke is the advisor and contact person for membership.