Area high school students descended on the University of Montana in Missoula for regional Business Professionals of American (BPA) competition on Wednesday, Jan. 13. The students from Region 2 gathered to compete in a number of business categories ranging from financing to entrepreneurship. 

All three Mineral County Schools have  BPA clubs at their schools with a total of 49 students. Superior has 24, St. Regis 18 and Alberton seven. 

Superior High School BPA coordinator, Jaime Toivonen, said that in addition to the competitions, the kids also participated in a community service project. Each team brought either a monetary or food donation for the Missoula Food Bank. They also heard some good speakers, including Tom Snyder, the owner of the local Missoula restaurant Five-on-Black and Jenn Gonzales, who spoke about Human Resources. 

At regionals, 41 Mineral County students placed and secured a spot at State, which will be held in Billings March 13-15. In Billings, they will compete with over 1,500 Montana BPA members. This year’s theme for the Montana State Business Professional of American State Leadership Conference is “Aspire today. Inspire tomorrow”.

Toivonen said that she was very proud of her students. “They put in a lot of work and it showed. Now I’m excited to see how they do at State.”

St. Regis School BPA coordinator, Chad Eichenlaub said that his students did “very well, and 14 qualified for state. They put a lot of work into it and it showed.” 

Alberton’s coordinator, AJ Angelo, said that five of his team members qualified.

Team results are listed below.

Superior first place winners:

Senior Morgan Sarmento, Graphic Design Promotion

Junior Nathan Lapinski, Interview Skills

Freshman Margaret Parkin, Fundamental Word Processing

Junior Kaylee Ray, Digital Publishing

Junior Sammi Francis, Medical Office Procedures

Senior Randall Johnson, Parliamentary Procedure Concepts

Margaret Parkin, Cathryn Parkin, Aidan Patko, Haleigh Bontrager for Administrative Support Team

St. Regis first place winners:

Madison Hill, Anna Sanford, Emma Hill for Small Business Management Team

Connor Dunlap, Noah Salem, Emma Hill for Video Production Team

Connor Dunlap, Courtney Cheesman Nicole Orrison for Presentation Management Team

Madison Hill, Anna Sanford for Economic Research Team

Courtney Cheesman, Economic Research

Ebon Jones, Computer Modeling

Connor Dunlap,Human Resource Management

Anna Sanford, Advanced Office Systems and Procedures

Madison Hill, Fundamental Desktop Publishing

Steven Lowry, Computer Security

Madison Kelly, Basic Office Systems and Procedures

Madison Hill, Integrated Office Applications

Anna Sanford, Advanced Spreadsheet Applications

Madison Hill, Database Applications

Steven Lowry, Fundamentals of Web Design

Trevor Lowry, SQL Database Fundamentals

Alberton winners:

Jaymen Sibert took three first place finishes and one fourth place finish.

Mackenzie Spence placed first in Spreadsheet Applications and third in Interview Skills

Nick Turnbull placed third in Human Resource Management.

Isaac Warren placed fourth in Human Resource Management and second in Medical Office Procedures.

Cody Callison placed fourth in Extemporaneous Speech.

Montanna Baughman placed fifth in Banking and Finance.

Angelo said that Alberton’s video production team finished third and missed State by only a few points. The team included Cody Callison, Rebecca Pluth, and Mackenzie Spence.