Are they the Future Business Leaders of America—or the Future Chocolatiers of America?

While some of these high school students will be heading to Hershey, Pennsylvania in April, they will not be going to become future chocolatiers. Instead, the qualifying members of Beaver Area High School’s FBLA will be competing at the FBLA State Leadership Conference.

FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America) is a high school student organization that prepares students for careers in business through academic competitions, leadership development, and educational programs.

Mrs. Lori Guandolo sponsors Beaver Area’s FBLA chapter.

To qualify for the state conference, each student competes either online or in person for their select event. During the competition, students take either an objective test, make a presentation or speech, or participate in an interview. To qualify for the competition in Hershey, the student must place top-three in the region.

Congratulations to the six qualifiers from Beaver Area FBLA!

Freshman Ezra Maize for Broadcast Journalism, junior Gary Liu for Graphic Design, senior Isabel Rubino in Organizational Leadership, junior Ella Peluso in Political Science, and junior Payton Cutshall and freshman Elizabeth Paskey in Social Media Strategies all qualified.

April 11-13, some of these students will have the opportunity to go to Hershey, Pennsylvania to compete in person. Unfortunately, some of the events will be held via Zoom due to Covid.

“I won’t be competing in person which I’m honestly really upset about,” said Rubino. “I was looking forward to the business seminars and meeting people from all over the state.”

Four of Beaver Area’s six qualifiers will be competing in Hershey. Cutshall and Paskey, who placed first in the region for Social Media strategies as well as Maize and Liu will be traveling to Hershey in April.

To qualify for states, Cutshall and Paskey made a seven-minute presentation to a panel of judges about a restaurant they created to place first in the region. After making a few corrections, the girls will make the same presentation to another live panel of judges in Hershey.

Besides competing, the qualifying members from all over the state will attend many business seminars to gain business and leadership skills. Business leaders will also attend the event to share their business experience with attendees.

Aside from the business aspects of the trip, all of the members in attendance will get to spend a day at Hershey Park enjoying themselves after competing against each other.

“Besides competing, I’m looking forward to going to Hershey Park with Elizabeth [Paskey] and friends from other schools in Beaver County,” shared Cutshall.

Congratulations and good luck to all Beaver Area FBLA competitors!