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BPA takes 39 students to State Conference

Five BEA students qualified for Nationals, and 13 students are finalists

By Fiona Green - Staff Writer | Mar 24, 2024

The BEA Business Professionals of America team’s State qualifiers are pictured at the Minnesota BPA State Leadership Conference on March 14-16.

The Blue Earth Area Business Professionals of America (BPA) team qualified a record number of students for the 2024 Minnesota BPA State Leadership Conference – 47, to be exact.

Thirty-nine of those students traveled to Minneapolis for the conference, which was held on March 14-16, to join a total of over 1,400 BPA members competing from across the state.

Five BEA BPA students returned home as qualifiers for the 59th annual National BPA Leadership Conference – the pinnacle of BPA competition.

An additional 13 students were named finalists at the State Leadership Conference, meaning they may have a chance to attend the National Leadership Conference, as well.

“The finalists are waiting to see if anyone ahead of them decides to go,” explains BEA BPA advisor Holly Vogltance, adding that, in the event that some National qualifiers opt not to attend the conference, then finalists are offered the opportunity to attend in their place.

Among the BEA students who have qualified for the National Leadership Conference are Ava Peterson and Amelia Greff, who finished in fourth and fifth place in Legal Office Procedures.

Greff also competed in Parliamentary Procedure Concepts, where she was a finalist.

Paige Kirsch qualified for Nationals with her fifth-place finish in Medical Coding, as did Carol Schrader, who finished in fifth place in Health Insurance & Medical Billing.

BEA’s fifth National qualifier was Seth Mathews, who finished second in Meeting & Event Planning.

Two additional Health Insurance & Medical Billing students, Madelyn Ferguson and Jackie Martinez, were finalists in the category. Ferguson was also a finalist in the Health Administration Procedures category.

Two BEA BPA teams were also State finalists. The Broadcast News Production team of Liv Dutton, Sara Wirth and Kyla Roiger finished as finalists, as did the Parliamentary Procedure Team of Reed Sturtz, Schrader, Peterson, Greff, Alexis Thompson and Grace Hanson.

The BPA National Leadership Conference will be held in Chicago, Illinois, on May 10-14. The BEA students who attend will have the opportunity to compete with thousands of top BPA students from across the United States.

BPA leadership conferences offer students the opportunity to compete in nearly 70 events focused in the areas of finance, business administration, management information systems, digital communication and design and management, and marketing and communication.

Designed to prepare students to succeed in the real world, the conferences assess students’ real-world business skills and their problem-solving abilities.