“I came from a long line of DECA members in my family! My three older cousins and older sister were all DECA competitors for BMHS, so I was destined to join! I was hooked from day 1 as a freshman, where I competed in a role play. Although I had the passion, I definitely did not have the talent (or knowledge) to make it very far, but I decided to stick with it my sophomore year. I competed in an operations research category both my sophomore and junior year, and unfortunately didn’t make it to ICDC, but was lucky enough to attend ICDC as a junior attending the leadership conference. Getting the opportunity to see my first ever ICDC lit such a fire inside of me and I knew going into my senior year I wanted nothing else but to make it to that level of competition! I was so grateful that hard work and determination paid off and with the help of an incredible partner, we made it to ICDC 2019 in Orlando. We were elated enough just to make it to ICDC, we truthfully didn’t put too much pressure on ourselves to place high, but much to our surprise we not only made finals but place third in the world in SEOR! We will never forget the feeling of that glass being placed in our hands- such a surreal moment! I have now graduated college with a masters degree and work full time and I still think of our glass winning moment from time to time! I am still so grateful for all that I learned and all the memories from DECA!”

— Mackenzie, when asked about her DECA journey