National contest set for April 26-30 in California

Contributed photo
Eight members of the Henning BPA team recently competed in the state contest. They included: Elin Smith, Lila Thorson, EmmaLee Smith, Joseph Froslee, Lilian Moench, Isabelle Godding, Monica Hansen and Tiffany Weber.
Contributed photo
Monica Hansen and Lila Thorson have advanced to the National BPA contest that will be held in Anaheim, Calif. in April.

The Henning BPA (Business Professionals of America) chapter had eight students recently compete at the State Leadership Conference with two of the members qualifying for nationals in two events each. There were approximately 1,200 students from across the entire state of Minnesota competing at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in the Twin Cities. Students are allowed to compete in two events each.  

Sophomore Lila Thorson and freshman Monica Hansen advanced to the national competition, which will be held in Anaheim, Calif. The top five in individual events and top two teams advance in each contest.  

Thorson advanced in both of her events with a second place finish in Advanced Word Processing and a third place finish in Advanced Office Systems and Procedures. 

Hansen advanced in both of her events with a second place finish in Prepared Speech and a third place finish in Intermediate Word Processing.  They now have earned the opportunity to represent Henning School, BPA chapter and community at the National Leadership Conference in Anaheim, Calif. from April 26-30. 

BPA Adivsor Mike Hepola said there will be costs associated with the trip to the national BPA contest. He said the Henning students will likely do a few fundraisers and would appreciate any help the local businesses and individuals would like to offer.  If anyone would like to help out or would like more information, feel free to contact Hepola at mhepola@henning.k12.mn.us

Some of the contests don’t print out complete results and this year awards were moved up to Friday night instead of Saturday morning due to the impending weather. The change allowed the Henning students to come back late Friday night, so with that rush, not all were entered into the computer system. The following results are only the ones Hepola knew of at the time of publication. Most of these contests have about 45-50 students competing in each one as most regions are allowed to send five or six.  

Freshman Isabelle Godding finished 10th in Intermediate Word Processing. Senior Joseph Froslee finished in 15th place in Extemporaneous Speech.  Freshman Elin Smith finished in 18th place in Fundamental Word Processing. Sophomore Tiffany Weber finished in 19th place in both Basic Office Systems and Procedures and Intermediate Word Processing. Freshman EmmaLee Smith finished in 27th place in Basic Office Systems and Procedures.  

Hepola said Henning had a pretty young group with the freshman year being the first year they can compete in BPA and he really hopes this crew sticks with it and continues to build the local BPA chapter back up to what it was at one point prior to Covid. 

“(I am) very proud of them and the excellent job they did representing our school and community in their contests and more importantly with their behavior and professionalism down at the conference,” said Hepola.