Saratoga students place in top five at national FBLA competition

Two Saratoga High School students placed fifth in the nation at the 2013 Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) National Leadership Conference June 27-30.

Incoming senior Shelby McGuire and 2013 graduate Dillon Boydstun, working together as a team duo, received their fifth-place ranking for desktop publishing at the conference. The event took place at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, Calif.

Jared Mason, advisor for the Saratoga High School FBLA Club, said 10 of the school’s FBLA students participated in the event. More than 9,000 people were registered to attend. He said the placement of McGuire and Boydstun was a first for him while on staff at Saratoga High School.

“This was the first time I had ever had one of my students place at nationals since I’ve been a teacher here, and this was the fourth time I’ve attended,” he said. “All states participated, and there were all kinds of different events such as word processing, computer applications, emerging business issues and banking and financial accounting. It was mostly all high school students, and the kids could only compete in one event.

Mason said that as part of being judged on their desktop publishing task, McGuire and Boydstun had to create items such as a logo design, brochure, business card, flyer, newsletter and door hanger for a particular business on the computer. The task was done at school and then submitted to officials in charge of the national conference.

“We had to create flyers, a brochure and a newsletter after school for a made-up business a few months before the conference, and it had to be eye-catching enough,” Boydstun said. “We had to make everything on the computer and then print it out, and Mr. Mason submitted it to the people at the conference. We had to do everything that an actual desktop publisher in advertising would do.”

While at the conference, McGuire and Boydstun also had to complete a 100-question objective test that they were also judged on. Mason said both students were well-prepared going into the conference.

“Both Shelby and Dillon have experience from working together and from designing pages for the school yearbook,” he said.

McGuire said she became eligible for nationals after placing first in word processing (as an individual) and second in both desktop publishing (with Boydstun) and emerging business issues (with Daniel Kerbs and Cameron Collamer) at the Wyoming State FBLA Conference in Cheyenne in March.

“You had to place first or second in at least one event to go onto nationals,” she said. “I just started FBLA my sophomore year, so to get fifth place in nationals was a pretty big deal to me. It was exciting and an awesome experience to get up in front of 9,000 people and accept the award. I also plan to go into business management in college, so this experienced helped me out.”

Boydstun said he was surprised to receive fifth place out of around 200 other teams who participated in the desktop publishing category.

“It’s crazy, I can’t believe we placed fifth in the nation, and there were even people from Haiti, China and Europe there,” he said. “It also helped that I had the best teammate available.”

A recent Saratoga High School graduate, Boydstun said he plans to attend Western Wyoming Community College this fall and major in exercise science.