DECA competition sees over 500 gather at university

JACKSON, Tenn. – Major DECA competition with more than 500 students held at Union University.

Over 500 students from over 20 high schools in West Tennessee gathered at Union University for a competition.

DECA is a program focused on preparing high school students for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality, and management.

Michael Hoots, a teacher at East High School in Memphis, told us more about this program.

“DECA is an international business and marketing organization focused on entrepreneurship and marketing, specifically. The students learn everything about the distribution process for marketing, advertising, owning your own business. They write business plans and present them to business people. They try to take them to competitions for scholarships,” Hoots said.

These competitions are happening all over the state with the hopes of moving on to the state competition, and then to the international competition in California.

“It’s challenging. It’s all real world. Questions are real world just like if you are a business person going to work everyday. They are doing the same thing in these role plays. Top seven in each category get to go to the state competition February the 28th. In the state competition, if they win, they get to go to Anaheim, California in April for the national, international actually, because they come from all over the world for that,” Hoots said.

Miles Stokes, a student at East High School, talked about why he enjoys DECA and what he has learned from his experiences.

“Of course I get to meet a lot of people and network because I know a lot of people here run their own business. So I get to support teenagers like myself, meet new people, network with people across other schools, find new opportunities. Of course here at Union they offered us $1,000 a year for DECA students that apply today as well as a few waivers. So it is just new opportunities,” Stokes said.

DECA was founded in Memphis at the Peabody Hotel in 1947. 

There are now over 250,000 members across more than 25 countries.

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