Alexandra Burgin, representing Oak Harbor High School, placed first in international competition at the 2003 DECA International Career Development Conference held April 26-29 in Orlando, Fla.

DECA is an international association of marketing students with 185,000 members in the United States, Canada, Germany and the U.S. territories. Its programs are integrated into local high school marketing education progrmas to help teach skills and standards required in business today.

DECA’s competitive events programs uses interviews, tests, role-plays, online simulations and written project reports to evaluate students’ marketing and management skills — specific skills, taught in marketing classes and in DECA activities, that have been identified by the business community as essential for success. Burgin qualified to compete in food marketing at the associate level against hundreds of other competitors by winning the state/provincial competition earlier this spring. DECA members in competive events program choose from 38 events.

Five months ago, Burgin was recruited into the marketing group at Oak Harbor High School called DECA. In the following months, with a little convincing from the advisor and fellow students, Burgin started studying tests and practicing role-play to compete.

“I was a bit hesitant at first but once I got the basic concepts and learned how to do a role play, everything started to flow,” Burgin said.

In state competition, Burgin competed in food marketing against more than 100 high school students and took second place. Winning the state award didn’t excite Burgin. Earning the right to represent Washington in the national DECA competition in Florida did excite her.

“The fun of being involved in DECA, the intensity of presenting my ideas and marketing knowledge in front of judges was exhilirating,” Burgin said.

“Consistently, Washington state has had the most national winners of any other state, making it extremely difficult just to qualify for national competition,” Eric Peterson, Burgin’s advisor, said.

This year, more than 7,000 members competed at the conference and more than 1,500 business professionals served as judges. During the conference, $200,000 in stock, cash and scholarships are presented to international winners by major corporations and associations that support DECA functions.

At the awards ceremony, Burgin’s hard work paid off as winners were announced.

“She was so nervous, she was shaking up on stage,” Peterson said. “After a long pause, the annoucer said ‘And the winner in first place from Washington, Alexandra Burgin.’”

Burgin is the only national DECA champion from Oak Harbor High School in the last decade.