PRIEST RIVER — Even though the Business Professionals of America competition this year allowed only the first place winners from team events to go to state, seven Priest River Lamanna High School students still qualified to take part in the competition.

Under the rules of previous years, PRLHS would have been able to take 18 students, so it was a “tougher” competition this year, said the school’s BPA advisor Kari Eggert.

“We had an amazing time at state,” Eggert told West Bonner County School District official during the March 20 board meeting.

After competing at the state level earlier this month, one PRLHS senior, Emily Butler, is now preparing for the national competition in May. As she plans to pursue a degree in graphic design and public relations, Butler said she participated in two competitions at state — digital publishing and graphic design promotion. For digital publishing, Butler said it was a graphic design test where she was given a certain amount of time to do a number of various jobs for a “client.” For the graphic design promotion, she created a design back in November, a design she will again use at the national competition.

“I am promoting to pitch this design as the 2020 National Leadership Conference poster,” Butler said as she held up her design for the board and the public to see.

The national competition begins on May 1 in Anaheim, Calif.

In addition to the competition, under the corporate partnership for BPA, the Priest River team sponsors the Special Olympics, so they will be participating in the Walk for Special Olympics while in Anaheim.

The timeline will be a tight one for Butler and Eggert, as she plans to home and ready in time for prom on May 4 after the final rounds for graphic design promotion that morning.

The total cost of the trip is estimated at $3,390 for Butler and Eggert. To raise money for the trip, Butler is selling raffle tickets with a number of prizes available, including a $50 Elkins Resort Restaurant gift certificate, a photography mini-session with Elizabeth Willyard, a metal Priest Lake photo from Autumn’s Loft, as well as haircuts, manicures, gift baskets and more.

Butler was at Mitchell’s Harvest Foods selling raffle tickets and Monday and Tuesday, and will be back on April 8-9. Tickets are $5 each, or five for $20.

“Fundraising is very important because none of this comes out of levy dollars, none of this comes out of school funds … as per all of our BPA aspects, this is completely based on fundraising,” Eggert said.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.