Clymer Central School’s FBLA team scored 15 wins overall at their recent state convention. Submitted photo

CLYMER — Clymer Central School’s FBLA walked away from their recent State Convention with 15 awards overall for both individual and team awards, with the plan to continue on to Nationals for many later this month.

State Convention took place in Rochester from April 10 to 12, with the competitions happening that Wednesday and Thursday and awards handed out Friday. There were multiple different categories a member could participate in, including prepared public speaking, impromptu public speaking, job interview, client services, decision making and a problem solving case study. For categories such as the impromptu speech, members had to go into a room and receive their problem with ten minutes given to them to write a four or five minute speech about it and then present that. The prepared public speaking involved preparing all year on a topic that the National board picked. This year’s topic was convincing the Board of Education to give more funding to each school’s FBLA chapter.

Competitions begin with subareas, then moving to districts, states and then nationals. Clymer’s high school section of FBLA had ten members in districts, with nine that advanced to states and nationals. The younger group, or mid-level, made up of seventh and eighth grade has seven members, with five competing at districts and states and four advancing to nationals.

Chapter competition wise, Clymer’s FBLA won second place in the Local Chapter Annual Business Report that was written by Jeffrey Perry and presented to judges, first place for the chapter’s business display, created by Roman Wassink, Vienna Durfey, Jeffrey Perry, and Joel Skarzenski, fourth place for the chapter’s community service project written and presented by Matilyn Rhines, and second place for the American Enterprise Project created and presented by Evangeline Johnson.

Individual state champions are as follows: Matthew Perry in Learning Strategies, Addeleide Reynolds in Critical Thinking and Flynn Fadale in Exploring Technology. Other individual awards include: Jeffrey Perry who earned a first place award in State Program of Work Committee’s Pursuing Professionals competition, second in Introduction to Word Processing and third in Creed Speaking, Flynn Fadale second in Digital Citizenship, Addeleide Reynolds second in Career Exploration and Aida Fritts second in Elevator Speech.

Third place awards were given to Evangeline Johnson in Public Speaking, Aida Fritts in Exploring Business Issues, Matthew Perry in Financial Literacy, Matilyn Rhines in Intro to Business Procedures and Carter Widrig in Mission and Pledge and FBLA Concepts.

FBLA advisor Lisa Perry credited the students’ successes this year to the extra time the school has given at the beginning of the school day.

“They have a soft start at the beginning of the day before home room that is open for study labs and other classes when students first arrive,” Perry said. “The FBLA kids were in my room working every day this year.”

The chapter was also awarded Second Place Chapter of the Year. Perry said this means that they are the second most active chapter in the state, beating out other competing schools that could have more than 300 kids involved.

“We have only a few kids in our club and they do everything compared to the bigger schools,” Perry said. “There is a certain percentage of kids that need to participate as well. The chapter of the year involved putting together a digital scrapbook that was made up of 122 slides, put together by my son, Jeffrey Perry.”

Other chapter events such as the Community Service Project and American Entrepreneurs took place throughout the year with all of the chapter members participating. The Community Service Project involved services to veterans such as hosting a breakfast where kids raised money, bought groceries, prepared and served the food. They also placed flags in May and raised money for Canines for Warriors, which helps raise money for veterans with PTSD. The American Entrepreneurs project allowed the students to work at Clymer school’s food truck, making a menu, doing inventory, scheduling times to serve, and more. The food truck operated during home track meets and football games.

FBLA National Convention will be in Orlando, Florida beginning June 29 with awards to be given on July 2. State and national officers will also be elected during the convention, and Perry said that two students from Clymer are voting delegates. There will be keynote speakers and workshops at the National Convention as well.

Clymer’s FBLA members have put in a lot of work over the year, and Perry said she was extremely proud.

“I’m so beyond proud of how hard they have worked,” Perry said. “I think a lot of people in the community just say oh that happens every year, but it doesn’t just happen. They have worked hard every day all year.”

Perry said there was also a National Champion Chapter Challenge that gives each chapter a to-do list each month that students have been working on all year. Clymer’s chapter will also be recognized as a Champion Chapter Gold Honoree at Nationals and given a banner to hang in the classroom.

“They have just worked so hard and I am blessed as the advisor to watch these kids take risks that they might not have taken at the beginning of the year,” Perry said. “It’s an amazing experience to watch them grow and mature and develop. As a K-12 building I watch them grow from fourth grade keyboarding, up through high school and see them become successful human beings as adults. It’s neat to see them connect it back to FBLA and say how good of an experience they had. I am blessed.”