FBLA competes in Virginia State Leadership Conference

Photo Courtesy of Matthew Denlinger

Sophomores Bimansha Huseni, Kaitlyn Stum, senior Carlos Bolanos and FBLA director Matthew Denlinger pose for a picture after competing at the Virginia State Leadership Conference.

Silas Spears, Online Editor in Chief

Our future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) Chapter competed at the Virginia State Leadership Conference this past weekend.  The competition took place at Hyatt Regency Hotel in Reston, VA. It included over 1000 students in various business competitions. Several students competed. Juniors Kaitlin “Katie” Stum and Bimansha “Beam” Huseni both placed at the competition as well as senior Carlos Bolanos.

[We took] a weekend trip over to DC for a state competition for FBLA. Basically I took a test and did a role play… with judges,” Stum said.

Stum placed fifth for her individual event and third for her team event competing with Bimansha. Stum has hopes that their team can advance to nationals with their 3rd place win. But that all depends on how many other people across the country have done. 

“For our competition in International Business we basically had to put together a scenario where you use business internationally. And you express it to the judges. There were a [total] of eight competitors and we got third place,” Bimansha said.

Bimansha is using FBLA to get a better taste of the business world and have some on field experience. 

“It was a good experience. It was really nice to see different kids from different schools in Virginia. Hopefully we can make it to nationals which is in Chicago and that [will be] in the summer. Earlier we did a regional competition. That was for our Shenandoah region, for that we got second place. I enjoy Business Law in general. And I really like meeting new people and networking different aspects of the business worlds and [always] learning more,” Bimansha said.

Both Bimansha and Stum were named All-State.