MINERAL COUNTY – Mineral County Business Professionals of America teams returned to Alberton, Superior and St. Regis last week after displaying their skills and talents for the judges at the regional BPA competition in Missoula.

Superior High School BPA co-coordinator Jaime Toivonen said all three schools brought their best and brightest to the competition and the results reflected the high caliber of students in the program throughout Mineral County.

“Things went great and as well as I could have expected,” Toivonen said. “All three Mineral County schools did really well. We are taking almost the entire team to state. There were a lot of first place finishes which was nice to see. All their hard work paid off. All three schools have a good chance to place at state. It was very competitive.”

Alberton High School BPA coordinator Kent Haab said his students also did well. One of the students took first place in one of the more nerve-wracking events. Cody Callison won the extemporaneous speech competition which requires students to think on their feet because they don’t have advanced notice as to the topic.

“That was a highly competitive event,” Haab said. “I believe they’re given three topics. They pick one and then have to come back and give a speech. Cody did it last year and this year he came back and won. He said it’s the first time he’s won anything since the second grade when he guessed the right number of candy corn in a jar. Our video production team also took first.”

Haab said the video production team created a short film on the new school lunch program. He said the film provided educational information about the benefits of healthy eating. Haab also said the schools picked the Alberton Food Bank as the recipient for their fundraising efforts.

In St. Regis, BPA coordinator Chad Eichenlaub said his team also performed well. He said the students performed beyond his expectations.

“The kids from St. Regis did an outstanding job,” Eichenlaub said. “They did much better than we have in the past. They did a great job. It was a big difference from previous years.”

The state BPA competition is from March 8 through the 10th in Billings.