DECA students from the high school  travelled to Columbus to compete at states. They competed in different categories to determine the best business salesman/woman.

Students who placed high enough will go on to further competitions. Any student who placed 4th and up in a competition was invited to go to the next one as well.

Distributive Education Clubs of America, DECA, is a way for high school and college students to prepare for their future, or current, college major.

DECA has 200,000 high school members with DECA clubs in 3,500 schools worldwide. DECA also has 15,000 college members with DECA in 275 colleges.

DECA is in all 50 states. Also, it is in The District of Columbia, Canada, China, Germany, Guam, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Spain.

One reason DECA was created is to help people become better equipped to start their own business and handle all the affairs of their business.

The main idea of DECA is to help students planning to major in entrepreneurship, marketing, finance, hospitality and management. DECA will help work with students and give them the skills they need.

DECA is not only for students planning to major in those areas: DECA also works to help further student’s knowledge in teamwork skills, leadership and individual growth.

By teaching students teamwork skills, leadership and growth, the program will help students later on in life. These skillsets are needed in every major for college, and also in the real world.

Each DECA competition has five different subjects students can compete in; business management and administration, entrepreneurship, marketing, finance and hospitality and tourism.

More specific subjects students can compete in are sports, hospitality, sales, human resources, marketing communications, business services, retail, advertising, fashion, entrepreneurship and accounting.

All five categories have more specific and detailed subcategories for the students to choose from. There is about 56 subcategories all together.

Students can compete solo in competitions, and people who placed first through fifth got to advance to state level. Students can also compete in two person teams, and the top three, they advance to state level.

“Those in the top four or five of their event can continue onto nationals which is in Orlando, Florida this April,” Lisa Mowles, one of the DECA advisors, said.

Stow’s DECA has 30 students who competed to win a spot in the state level competition. Of the 30 students that qualified, 25 of them made it to states.

High school students from all over the country compete in DECA competitions, including some college students. There is a DECA organization in all 50 states.

Stow is part of DECA’s district XI. District XI includes: Stow, Tallmadge, Kent Roosevelt, Firestone, Coventry, Wadsworth, Barberton, Springfield, Buchtel, Kenmore, Trumbell Country Career Center and East.

The high school book club was given a great honor for the 2014- 2015 school year; they were given the opportunity to review books written by unknown authors.

The book club has teamed up with the Teens Top Ten, or T.T.T., which is a national teen reader’s choice award to pick the favorite teen book of the year. The high school was one of only 16 schools and libraries  picked to participate.

Publishers send the school copies of teen books that have yet to be published before they hit the shelves. Book club members read the books and review them, which are sent to the publishers to read. The students also nominate the books for awards such as the T.T.T.

The program motivates teens to read and to be able to critically evaluate the literature and analyze it. The students are considered book reviewers. The books are not only for members of the club, students are welcome to drop in the library and take a book to read. During the high school orientation, middle schoolers are also showing interest in the program.

The reviews are written and submitted to YALSA, the Young Adult Library Services association. Christina, the stow Public teen librarian nominated the Stow students to review the books by submitting a bio on the students and what they do.

YALSA was founded in 1957, and is a national association of librarians, library workers and advocates whose mission is to expand and strengthen library services for teens aged 12-18. Through its member-driven advocacy, research, and professional development initiatives, YALSA builds the capacity of libraries and librarians to engage, serve and empower teens, which gives teen the power to review and pick their favorite book, as a professional book critic would.

The book club meets one Thursday a month and many times during the summer at the Stow Monroe Falls Public Library. During the school year, students are able to visit book club during lunch periods or study halls. Students are encouraged to take as many books as they want when at meetings but are urged to make reviews.

The program promotes reading, it demonstrates that reading is still big and  high school kids are reading more independently than they ever have, checkouts are constant, we have a lot of readers here. The high school has also teamed up with the stow public library and Kent state, along with YALSA and T.T.T.

School Librarian Kelly Lanci said, “ I think that sometimes with the new technology and with the way libraries are changing, for the better, for the twenty first century, a lot of times people are very opinionated about libraries and assume or think that we don’t like books anymore, that we don’t promote reading, we don’t want kids reading the newest titles and that is far from the truth. This honor proves that reading is happening, that we love our books, ebook or not.”

One annual tradition that takes place at the high school every year is the author meet up that the book club holds.

They either skype or bring in a guest author to speak with them for the book they are currently reading.

The book they have been reading is “AntiGoddess” by Kendare Blake. Blake is from South Korea and was adopted at the age of seven months.  She grew up in the small town of Cambridge, Minnesota.

She has a Bachelor’s degree in Business from Ithaca College and a Master’s degree in Writing from Middlesex University in London.

Her debut book was “Sleepless Society,” which is about post 9/11 teenagers coming of age. Her next two books were “Anna Dressed in Blood” and “Girl of Nightmares,” which are horror novels following the strange life of the main character, Cassio Lowood, a teenage ghost hunter. Her most recent greek-mythology focused series called “Goddess War” started with “Antigoddess,” which is the novel the book club read. Following Antigoddess is Mortal Gods and she plans to conclude the series with Ungodly, which will debut this year.

She currently lives on the West Coast, which is where she will be skyping from.

The main people in charge of this event were Kelly Lanci and Christina Getrost. Christina Getrost is the teen librarian at the Stow Public Library.

Getrost started by selecting a book that they were reading around spring time because she likes to do the Skype visit around the new year. She decided to go with the book “AntiGoddess” because they had planned to read it this spring.

Getrost got a hold of Blake and was able to set up the Skype visit for the exact day they had planned.

“One thing I also asked her was how to pronounce her name, and she gave me this cute reply. ‘So it’s three syllables. Ken, like the doll. Dahr, like Darth Vader, and a little uh on the end, like uh, what the [heck] are you doing with that Ken doll, Darth Vader? Ken-Dahr-uh.’ I thought that was hilarious,” said Getrost.

Blakes’ Skype visits usually do cost a fee to take place and this is common amongst many authors. Blake said that she would waive the fee if they purchased copies of her book. The public library had already purchased 50 copies, so they did not have to pay a fee for this Skype visit.

The book club members are very excited for this event to take place and have been preparing questions they are very eager to ask. Do not forget to tune into Stohion.com on March 19 for a live recap of the Skype visit.