Eighteen Alachua County Public Schools students recently qualified to compete in the national Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) competition this summer after winning awards at the FBLA State Leadership Conference.
Fifteen students from Buchholz High School and three from the Professional Academies Magnet @Loften High School (PAM@LHS) earned awards at the state conference in categories ranging from Banking and Financial systems to Games and Simulation.
The Buchholz team, whose members are part of the school’s Academy of Finance, was recognized as a Gold Seal Chapter for their involvement with service organizations, including Keep Florida Beautiful and the March of Dimes.
The award-winners from PAM@Loften are enrolled in the school’s Academy of Gaming and Mobile Apps and the Academy of Robotics and Engineering.
Nearly 6,000 students from across Florida participated in over 50 business-related events at the state conference, which also included workshops on teamwork and leadership. More than 17,000 students are expected at the national conference, which will be held in Anaheim, California, from June 29-July 2.
The local state award winners who have all qualified for the nationals include:
Bucholz High School
First Place: Alexander Harris, Jaite Howell and Finnian Mangan for Banking and Financial Systems; Adrian Palamarev for Coding and Programming, Eddie Yuan for Economics, and Alexander Hughes for Introduction to Marketing Concepts
Second Place: West Gila for Accounting I, Reinata Jiang for Insurance and Risk Management, Luke Geltner for Journalism, Xavier Zaldivar for Personal Finance and Daniel Zhang for Supply Chain Management.
Third Place: Dane Meyer for Introduction to Business Procedures and Andrew Xiong in Securities and Investments.
Fourth Place: Zachary Holth in Introduction to Business Concepts and Julia Klein in Spreadsheet Applications
Professional Academies Magnet @ Loften High School
Second Place: Noah Gorme and Roland Fisch, Games and Simulation
Third Place: Alex Baldwin: Introduction to IT