The Pulaski County High School DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America) has been notified that they have been recognized and will be commended at the DECA International Career Development Conference (ICDC) in April for achieving Thrive Level recognition during the 2023-24 school year.
Each fall, DECA offers four campaigns for chapters to complete as part of their program of leadership for the year. These campaigns are designed to grow membership engagement and build lasting partnerships within the school and local community. Chapters that achieve Thrive Level receive a commemorative pennant, flag and plaque.
The chapters also have an opportunity to participate in ICDC. In order to receive Thrive Level recognition, the chapter completed two out of three chapter campaigns, including the community service campaign, ethical leadership campaign, and promotional campaign. Alternatively, the chapter could have participated in the membership campaign, which challenged the chapter to attain two of three goals: recruit 20 professional members, recruit 20 alumni members or increase student membership by 20 more members from the previous school year.
With the assistance of their advisor, Mrs. Christy Underwood, the Pulaski County High School DECA members who contributed to the Thrive recognition were Elaina Aust, Samuel Carrasco-Segura, Dani Carroll, Luke Clemmons, Addison Dean, Chloe Duncan, Laken Greever, Emery Hale, Victoria Hale, Justus Hash, Madoc Hurysz, Leah Keefer, Cheyenne McDougal, Bryant Nottingham, Adalaide Phillippi, Payton Thomas, Ella Tolbert, Claire Viers, and Amelia Whitaker.
“I am so proud to live and work in a community that is so dedicated to giving the next generation every opportunity available to be successful.” said Christy Underwood, Marketing Teacher and DECA Advisor. “One of our goals for this year is to increase membership and awareness about PCHS DECA. In order for us to make this membership drive successful we needed to focus on gathering support from business leaders and alumni. Ella Tolbert, PC DECA President, worked with Shannon Ainsley from the Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce to reach business professionals in the community. Our Facebook and Instagram social media pages were utilized to reach Pulaski County High School Alumni.”
DECA is a career and technical student organization that prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs with a career interest in marketing, finance, hospitality, and management. DECA enhances the preparation for college and careers by providing co-curricular programs that integrate into classroom instruction, apply learning, connect to business and promote competition. DECA student members leverage their DECA experience to become academically prepared, community oriented, professionally responsible, experienced leaders. DECA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with nearly 250,000 members in 4,000 high school and college chapters in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and Germany.
For more information about DECA, visit www.deca.org.