The DECA breakfast welcomes next year’s members and says its goodbyes to the graduating class.
DECA Advisers Showers and Nicolo celebrate with next year's officers.
On May 5th, 2009, the Thomas Jefferson DECA organization held its annual breakfast at the Mt. Vernon Country Club to welcome incoming members and acknowledge the senior class and all of their efforts the past four years.
“The country club itself offers impeccable views that are second to none of all the dining establishments within the greater Denver business community. The food is scrumptious and appealing to all of the taste buds of our TJ DECA students. There was not one complaint about the food, and that’s really saying something,” said Career Technology Education Specialist Danny Showers.
After everyone had made their way through the buffet, the breakfast started off with an introduction from this year’s DECA Chapter Vice President Michael Davis. “The breakfast is a time when parents and students can come together and celebrate the successes of DECA for the past year,” said Davis.
The opening was lead by this year’s Chapter President Karina Desroses, who gave her thoughts on the year’s success. “I thought it turned out perfectly. We had an excellent turnout of new members and Mr. Heaton gave an amazing emotional speech that made our year,” said Desroses.
Following the opening, DECA’s Keynote Speaker Gordon Heaton presented his retirement speech to the audience, much of which was brought to tears. “I was expecting something great from Mr. Heaton, but nothing like what I saw. When he finished it wasn’t surprising to look around and find many with tears in their eyes, including myself,” said Junior Alex Kaufhold.
This year’s officers each followed up with an overview of a certain aspect of DECA and how successful each of them were. Junior Tommy Moehlman was first to cover the classroom aspects of the marketing program. Such aspects included basic marketing concepts, vocabulary, and real world business situations.
Next was Junior Paige Wilson who spoke about the 2008-2009 chapter activities. This included chapter meetings, fundraising, the state and district competitions, and more. “Being in DECA is a great experience. You learn lots of things like time management, people skills, and how to get a job,” said Wilson.
The end of the year video was then shown by Davis, which included an overview of the DECA program as well as photos taken throughout the year at various competitions in which the students participated. The competitions were further explained by Junior Alex Gustafson following the video.
TJ’s school store officer Matthew Kleberger described to the audience new items available for purchase online and in the new digital school store. “We’ve just launched our new TJ DECA online store, and I’m very excited to see how everything falls into place,” said Kleberger. [thomasjefferson.peapodprint.com]
Junior Alex Clark wrapped up the review of this year with an explanation of DECA’s fundraising plans. “I talked about the three fundraisers DECA held this year. Between the three (Tape The Coach, selling magazines, writing reviews), we met the year’s fundraising goals which was a major accomplishment,” said Clark.
Following the year’s review, awards were presented to certain student’s who had shown leadership throughout the school year.
The meeting was brought to an end with the announcement of next year’s officer team, which was presented by DECA Sponsor Matt Nicolo. “I thought this year’s breakfast was another great demonstration of what type of students we get in the DECA program. I thought we had an excellent turnout for this year’s event with approximately 156 total attendees, and I am very excited for the new officer team to get to know one another and start working as a team. The outgoing team will be missed and I think the seniors did a great job of setting the bar for the new officers in the upcoming year.”
Following this a few words of wisdom were presented by the officer team and the 2008-2009 Chapter President, Desroses.
