Fifty Lake Washington School District students qualify for a spot at the DECA International Career Development Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, in April.

In order to move on to the international conference, students had to place high enough at the DECA State Career Development Conference event, held at Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue in early March.

Students from Eastlake High School, Juanita High School, Lake Washington High School and Redmond High School competed against students from other schools from around the state. Below are the students who qualified for Internationals:

Eastlake High School:

1. Devanshi Pandyana – first place, principles of business administration
2. Rachel Clark – first place, principles of marketing
3. Lana Cho, Arya Mathew, and Emma Yuan – second place, business operations research
4. Amelia Johnson and Radhika Kuchibahtla – third place, sports and entertainment operations research
5. Anthony Humay, Nadia Luqman, and Amy Stewart – third place, entrepreneurship promotion project
6. Torrey Nielsen and Sanjana Sridhar – third place, financial literacy promotion project
7. Megha Mattikalli – third place, principles of business administration
8. Radhika Kuchibahtla – third place, human resource management
9. Kaitlyn Cameron and Amy Stewart – fourth place, finance operations research
10. Divya Parimi, Bella Viotto, and Elle Viotto – fifth place, creative marketing project
11. Amelia Johnson, Gurveen Rekhi, and Kira Spiro – fifth place, chapter activities project
12. Josh Steckler and Liam Bigbee – fifth place, hospitality and tourism operations research
13. Sophia Abiezzi, Shamile Aldossary, and Ally Schasteen – fifth place, business operations research
14. Nadia Luqman – sixth place, apparel and accessories marketing

Juanita High School:

1. Kyler Jobe – first place, sports and entertainment promotion plan
2. Monisha Weerasundara – first place, human resources management
3. Christina Bechtel – third place test score, apparel and accessories marketing
4. Hanna Johansson and Rebecca Liu – fourth place, growing your business manual
5. Anuj Ankit, Arthur Liu, and Dylan Stockard – fourth place, sports and entertainment promotion plan
6. Monisha Weerasundara and Oliver Jones – fifth place, public relations project
7. Chase Peltz and Jim Popolow – sixth place, advertising campaign
8. Shayan Nathan and James Leuthold – sixth place, financial services
9. Makayla Mourer – sixth place, principles of hospitality services
10. Tom Balback – seventh place, principles of financial services

Lake Washington High School:

1. McKenzie Granston – fourth place, marketing management role play
2. Katrina Yang – sixth place, entrepreneurship franchise business plan

In addition, Matthew Malloy and Nicholas Mihas wrote a 45-page business manual for the student store and it achieved gold status. Both students are moving onto DECA nationals to compete against other student stores in a leadership seminar and competition.

Redmond High School:

1. Rand Ferch – first place, business services marketing
2. Shaurya Aggarwal and Richard Zhang – first place, independent business plan
3. Shaurya Aggarwal – third place, hotel and lodging management
4. Leo Simernitski and Will Johnson – third place, travel and tourism marketing team
5. Richard Zhang – fifth place, marketing management
6. George Cretu eorge Cretu – seventh place, accounting applications

DECA Inc., a not-for-profit organization founded in 1946, has been preparing rising leaders and entrepreneurs in marketing, finance, hospitality and management for almost 70 years. The organization has impacted more than 10 million high school and college-age young adults, educators, school administrators and business professionals.