Three East organizations took on the challenge of presenting their projects at the state level over the past month. Students have been working on their presentations since the beginning of the school year. 

East’s DECA chapter competed in Lincoln on Mar 14-16. The chapter brought home 12 national qualifiers. Adviser Dawn Danauskas said she took a total of 17 students.

“DECA is a student organization that helps students achieve more leadership and communication skills,” Danauskas said. “It concentrates on the area of marketing, finance, business management operations, and hospitality and tourism.”

Now headed to nationals in Orlando, Florida at the end of April, Danauskas said her students will work on perfecting their projects. After only the top 8 in the categories get to go to nationals, they now focus on the funding. Danauskas said the students use the money from the school store to help with that.

“Now [at nationals] we’re Nebraska DECA, not just Bellevue East DECA,” Danauskas said. “So, we want to go and beat the Canadians and the kids from all around states and countries.”

Sophomore Marissa Danauskas will join her chapter to compete at nationals. She competed in quick serve restaurant management, which she placed 6th in and received a leadership scholarship.

“My goal now is to learn great leadership skills at nationals and continue to try hard in DECA for the years to come,” Marissa Danauskas said.

Shortly after state DECA, Health Occupations Students of American (HOSA) tried their hand at their own state competition.

Adviser Jennifer Carda said she was very proud of her students. She said they worked from the beginning of the year on their own projects.

“Just to prepare themselves for their events, a lot of the students studied for the written tests on their own,” Carda said. “We also had study sessions during guided practice study where they came in and worked on practical skills with each other.

The categories ranged for the students. East HOSA came out with 13 national qualifiers. Carda said there was a variety of projects from the students.

“We took 20 kids to state this year and they competed in all kinds of events from community awareness, biomedical lab science, medical assisting, forensic medicine, community emergency response team, and a variety of others,” Carda said.

One of the 13 winners was senior Morgan Sautter. It was Sautter’s second year on HOSA and first year qualifying for nationals. She placed first with senior Madison Luderman in the community awareness category.

“Our project was Baby Shark saves lives where we taught middle and high schoolers how to do hands only CPR,” Sautter said. “We chose the song ‘Baby Shark’ because it has 100 to 120 beats per minute which is what you need for CPR.”

East’s Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) chapter was the last to take on state Apr. 4-6. FBLA had 11 national qualifiers. Senior Makenna Johannsen was among those winners and said their goal is to now prepare for the trip.

According to Johannsen, she taught students about business by partnering with Habitat for Humanity Home Store and volunteering there. The FBLA advisor Andrew Werner said the chapter is now preparing for nationals in San Antonio.

“I think state went really well,” Werner said. “The students put together a lot of good projects, worked really hard, went there and competed well. In the end we had four state champions and brought home nine trophies.”