Farmington High Student Wins International DECA Conference Event

Farmington High School senior Jane Xiao decided to take a marketing class in her junior year, because she heard it could be really helpful. 

"I stuck with it, and I'm really glad I did," said Xiao, who last month walked across the stage at the 67th annual International Career Development Conference to accept her first place award in the Food Marketing Series Event. 

Xiao had to win in district and state competition in order to make the trip to Anaheim, CA, as did her fellow DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America) chapter members Mackenzie Butler, Sydney Tyus, Rohit Bhadange, Sahit Bollineni, Prakash Pagadala and Michelle Scott. The High School division includes 185,000 members in 5,000 schools, with members in all 50 United States, the District of Columbia, Canada, China, Germany, Guam, Hong Kong, Korea, Mexico and Puerto Rico. More than 10,000 students compete at the conference. 

Xiao said she went to the conference last year as well, and really wanted to make a return trip because she had long wanted to see California. She credits teachers Nancy Price and Tom English with giving her "a lot of motivation" as she practiced the role plays she would engage in at the conference. 

"You pretend that you work for a grocery store, in any position from manager to cashier, and you talk to the judge, who is the CEO of a company," Xiao explained. "You have 10 minutes to prepare ... and you have to be really professional and talk to them about your ideas."

She said while she was nervous for her first round at the conference, "towards the end, I got really pumped. My goal was to get on stage as a finalist."

Hearing her name called as the first place honoree, Xiao said, "was a complete surprise. I wasn't expecting it at all, it was the best thing ever."

Xiao said she plans to attend the University of Pennsylvania, and while she has always wanted to go into a medical field, being involved in DECA has her more interested in marketing. She plans to take a consumer psychology class, and see what happens from there.