The Henning community, school and surrounding communities were very well represented by two young ladies at the National BPA (Business Professionals of America) Contests in Anaheim, Calif. from April 26-30.  

Sophomore Lila Thorson and freshman Monica Hansen had qualified for nationals in two events each. There are several contests and over 6,500 students from 19 different states along with Canada, China and Puerto Rico are represented at nationals. 

Before getting into the results, Thorson, Hansen and BPA advisor Mike Hepola said they would like to thank the many people that helped make this trip possible through various fundraising efforts.  The group worked concession stands and the BPA shake machine during a variety of events. The BPA would also like to thank the Ottertail Lions and Henning Hope for generous donations towards the girls’ trip, as well as Henning School by setting aside $250 per student towards nationals.  

The students had to finish in the top five in their computer events and top three in their speaking events at both the regional and state levels to qualify for nationals and then compete against the best at these events.  

Thorson had the top finish, just missing out on getting on stage where they honor the top 10 as she finished 14th out of 52 students in Advanced Office Systems and Procedures. The contest tests the students in Microsoft Office products Word and Excel.  She also finished 35th out of 54 in Advanced Word Processing which tests the students on their Microsoft Word skills.  

Hansen was competing in her first year as a freshman and ended up 40th out of 67 in Intermediate Word Processing which is also a Microsoft Word contest.  Hansen’s other contest was Prepared Speech in which she did a speech on a business related topic, they have several different sections with different judges and then each judge advances their top 1 or 2 to the finals. While Hansen wasn’t a finalist this year, but Hepola said she will be a force in the upcoming years.  

Contests are held from early morning until late each evening in all the different categories. Even though they qualified in two different events, the Henning group did have some free time and we took advantage of the opportunity and allowed them some experiences. The group visited the Griffith Observatory and Hollywood sign. They also spent some time at the ocean at Huntington Beach, some time at DisneyLand, as well as some other sight-seeing in the Anaheim area.  

As their advisor Hepola said he was very proud of these two young ladies and the tremendous job they did competing, but more importantly the wonderful representatives they were of our school and communities.