Taking care of business

Two Rhinelander High School students meant business when they walked into the Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) State Leadership Conference in Green Bay last month.

Senior Brody Kowieski emerged from the conference, which has a competitive component, as a state champion in his category, and senior Kate Ripple earned second in her category. 

Ripple

Both students advance to the national competition in Anaheim, California on June 27.

Kowieski and Ripple attended with seven other members of RHS’ FBLA chapter, including four others who placed in competition: FBLA and DECA president Payton McCue earned 6th place in Client Services, and the team of Aiden Ostermann, John Turek and Michael Schiek earned sixth place in Entrepreneurship. Approximately 2,400 students attended the conference.

“The competition is awesome because you learn skills like being able to think on the spot and be creative and be able to talk to all those different people had develop that confidence,” McCue said.

Kowieski was named state champ in the Impromptu Speaking category.

“For Impromptu Speaking Brody gets a prompt out of nowhere and is given 10 minutes to create a five-minute speech and then deliver that to the judges,” McCue said. “He took home first place for that, which is amazing and it’s another state champion for us which is great to have.”

Ripple earned high marks in the Business Law category, which is comprised of a 100-question test.

“When you see those tests, they can throw just about anything in within that range of business law —  and that is a huge range. For Kate to go there and get that second place is just amazing,” McCue said.

As a club, Rhinelander FBLA received the second place Community Service Award, which is determined by the number of community service activities and events the club has patriciated in. Last year they won first place.

“If you look at our body of work, it is full the whole year,” McCue said. “We are pushing as much community service in this community as possible because we like to give back and we think it’s the most important part of our organization, along with the competition.”

The Community Service Award is given based on the amount of time and number of members who have helped complete several projects throughout the year.

“If you look at our body of work, it is full the whole year. We are pushing as much community service in this community as possible because we like to give back and we think it’s the most important part of our organization, along with the competition.

Last year, Rhinelander FBLA was  active in Adopt-A-Highway, the Jeans for Teens fundraising campaign, the Trick or Can food panty fundraiser, and volunteered to help Ruby’s Pantry and Frederick Place.

One of their most popular community events is Santa letters at the elementary school. FBLA members help students write letters to Santa, take the letters to the high school for delivery and then write a signature response to each student’s letter.

“We really do push to have the most community service possible because we want to give back and I think it’s important for every kid to experience that,” McCue said.

In addition to the competition, the FBLA State Leadership Conference also featured a keynote address and networking opportunities.

“They always have colleges show up and they have a big career fair where many different places that are hiring come. It’s a good for all of us kids to see because it not only helps us grow but you can see the opportunities,” McCue said. “It’s also good to meet these different people, other kids, they will probably be around you later in life as other businesses so it’s important to have those different networking connections. It’s a great experience for people to have under their belt.”

McCue said both Kowieski and Ripple are planning to compete in the national conference in Anaheim this summer.

Michael Strasburg may be reached at [email protected].