Whitefish High School sent 28 students to the International Career Development Conference held April 26-29 in Orlando, Florida.  

“Our students dressed to the nines, practiced hard and represented Whitefish with the utmost professionalism,” said Kari Baxter, DECA advisor.  

There are 293,000 DECA members worldwide. Of those, only 26,000 qualified to compete at the conference. There was international competition from China, Russia, Japan, France, Thailand, Canada and Germany. 

Whitefish competitors included Logan Bingham, Maclean Vandevoort, Nola Brown, Lucy Marzo, Delila Vine, Bailey Kallal, Lauren Rossi, CJ Thew, Truth Baxter, Carmela Forcone, Unity Loveless, Abigail Berry, Milla Owens, Iona Sarraille, Nessa Solomon, Maggie Zonich, Marcus Mercer, Zoey Marzo, Lyla Rudolph, Ava Bee, Luca Gignoux, Cole Moses, Kyler Jonson, Elijah Adams-Griffin, Luke Healy, Petra Mauldin, Gretel Vine and Isabella Wilson. 

They competed in finance, entrepreneurship, hospitality, apparel merchandising, marketing and career development.   

“It was a large group to travel across the country with, but they were so responsible and thoughtful of one another, that it felt like a really united team,” Baxter said.  

Whilst not competing, students had some fun at Universal Studios, Cocoa Beach and Top Golf. 

“The memories created, as well as the opportunity to expand to the business world far beyond our small community, will have lifelong impacts on the students involved,” Baxter said. “It was a wonderful week, and such an honor to work with such top-notch students this year.” 

Many local businesses contributed to making this trip possible, including Pin & Cue, Bear Mountain Builders, Two Bear Capital, MacKenzie River Pizza, First Interstate Bank, Glacier Sotheby's, Imagination Station, Great Northern and others.

    Marcus Mercer, Luke Healy and Cole Moses at the DECA conference in Florida. (Photo by Kari Baxter)