The Española Valley High School Distributive Education Club of America’s (DECA) communications officer said participation in the organization helped him overcome his shy personality.
Eighteen-year-old Alexis Ayala-Duarte has been a member for only a year, but he credits the club with helping him learn to interact with people and with preparing him for a future career in hospitality and tourism.
According to the organization’s mission statement, the Club prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality and management in high schools and colleges around the world.
As the Club’s communications officer, Ayala-Duarte, along with his fellow student club members, helped organize two successful fundraisers this past academic year.
Nineteen students at Española Valley High School, ranging from grades nine through 12, qualified for the Club’s state competition, held in Albuquerque, from Feb. 22-24. The students competed in a number of categories, including sports and entertainment marketing, human resources management and principles of finance — among other disciplines.
Club Advisor Terri Strauss said the team has consistently qualified for regional competitions, but placing at Nationals is difficult because there are schools competing from around the world.
Strauss called the Española Valley High School Club a student-based enterprise experience, where practical skills like stocking, inventory control, cashiering and working a slushie machine are part of the students’ involvement and hands-on experiences.
Senior Skylor Garcia has been a member for three years and is president of the organization this year. His category in the competition was hotel and lodging management. He said he is focused on hospitality and tourism and membership in the club has helped him learn how to successfully interact with customers and prepare for a career in the business world.
“What I hope to get out of it is practical experience,” Garcia said. “I want to get into business management and hopefully I am able to do that.”
Garcia said he is looking into getting into the hotel management program at New Mexico State University. He said the high school’s organization teaches students how to deal with customers and how to help people while focused on a specific career — whether in hospitality or tourism. He said the program also prepares them to be good in business.
Garcia said he thought the organization would do well this year at state and in future competitions. This was his first trip to the state competition, where students from several different schools throughout New Mexico, compete.
Garcia said even though there are a number of students moving on and graduating, he is optimistic about the organization’s future success.
“I am feeling strong and confident, knowing the new leaders are following us and coming through with success,” the 17-year-old student said.
He said one goal the group shared collectively, was to dispel the stigma surrounding the community.
“We’re here to show that not everybody in Española is a bad person,” Garcia said.
Club Vice President, 16-year-old Nicholas Trujillo, has been a member for the past two years, and said the organization has taught him leadership and communication skills.
He said students had to take a test in whatever specialty they focused on, in order to qualify for competition. Students prepare by role playing mock interviews, customer interactions and by studying other aspects of the business world and entrepreneurship.
At state, the students get to choose the category in which they want to partake.
Trujillo said he chose business finance because he is really good at math. He said he is still weighing his options as far as a future career, but is considering computer science and trying do decide between attending New Mexico State University or Georgia Tech University, following high school.
Students in the program helped finance their trip to state.
“We had to fund raise, and so we sold Valentine Grams and Halloween Grams,” he said. “We sold them to individuals and passed them out during lunch. We also sold slushies and popcorn and pickles.”
Strauss said Trujillo is the first student from the high school to be nominated for a position as a state officer. If elected, he will represent the entire state of New Mexico in Washington D.C., as an officer of the organization. In addition, Garcia has also been nominated for a presidential scholarship for his involvement and work with DECA.
Fifteen-year-old Maurissa Maestas takes care of social media for the Club’s chapter. Even though it is her second year in the organization, she said she has helped establish and maintain the various Internet sites including Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, for the first time this year.
“I thought Pinterest was a good idea,” she said. “We do a lot of good things. That’s what I want to project on our social media. It’s about posting positive stuff, so when people see kids working concessions, it encourages others. It’s not only for our own good, but for others. We can pass these skills on to other students.”
Maestas’s carrer goals include going to college and majoring in criminology and law. She believes being part of the organization and updating its social media sites will be helpful to her future career, by teaching her to talk to a lot of diverse people and communicate more effectively.
“The biggest challenge is the amount of extra hours we put in as an extracurricular activity,” she said. “It’s different every week, but on average, we can spend anywhere from five to six hours a week on various activities.”
Maestas, whose focus in the competition was business law and ethics, said the experience not only helps students meet a lot of new people, it also encourages them to learn about leadership, teamwork and to learn to be social, while being better at communications.
Elias Gonzales took third place honors at the three day event and competitions and became a state finalist. Rebecca Martinez was also named a state finalist.