High school students to travel to Dallas for marketing contest

Several Lawrence high school students will be in Dallas next week to compete in a national marketing contest sponsored by the Distributive Education Clubs of America.

Thirteen students from Lawrence High School and nine from Free State High School are expected to leave Saturday or early Sunday morning.

All 22 finished first, second or third in state competition last month in Overland Park.

Much of the competition involves students assembling impromptu sales, marketing and promotional campaigns.

Last month, for example, LHS seniors Aisha Breckenridge and Caitie Hilton won first place in the state competition for developing a sales promotion based on the NCAA Final Four Basketball Tournament. Parts of the promotion were based on interviews with customers at JCPenney.

“It was called Final Four Ways to Save,” Hilton said.

Joel Hernandez, also a senior at LHS, took third for helping design a Web site aimed at letting a hypothetical water skiing company gather sales information on its customers.

Lawrence High School senior Myra Elizondo, a member of Distributive Education Clubs of America, which operates the concession stand, fills up one of the vending machines at LHS. Several area students will be in Dallas next week to compete in a national marketing contest sponsored by DECA.

“We put in a lot of hours,” Hernandez said, who has a part-time job at the Hy-Vee store at 4006 W. Sixth St. “But we get to go to nationals, so it was worth it.”

The competition at the Dallas Convention Center ends May 3.

The Distributive Education Clubs of America chapters at LHS and FSHS run the concession stands in the cafeterias at their respective schools.