DECA students compete in 3rd annual Fish Bowl competition - Alexandria Echo Press

ALEXANDRIA — Alexandria Area High School junior DECA students competed in the 3rd annual Fish Bowl Competition. The competition, sponsored by Bremer Bank and Brenton Orion, took place at the beginning of February.

This was the first year the competition had eight student groups and two business sponsors. Bremer Bank and Brenton Orion each donated $5,000 scholarships, which was divided up among the top three teams.

The panel of judges included Kelly Hawkingson and Denise Berg from Brenton Orion and Tony Loosbrock and Craig Olson from Bremer Bank.

The winners were as follows:

• First place – Heidi Shreve, Brooke Overland and Brett Thorburg with their financial literacy project. They each won $1,667. Their project included educating students on financial literacy in elementary, middle and high school.
• Second place – Rachael Mohr, Lane Kompelien and Carver Larson with their sales project. They each won $1,000. These three students partnered with the DECA Foundation to help raise funds for the organization, including working on the Battle of the Burger Challenge with Pike and Pint Grill.
• Third place – Brenna Eggebraaten, Rachel Bowen and Wes Schabel. They each won $667. These three students partnered with the American Cancer Society to raise money ($9,500) and care for local cancer patients.

Alexandria Area High School DECA students, middle, Rachael Mohr, Lane Kompelien and Carver Larson, won second place in the 3rd annual Fish Bowl Competition.

Contributed photo

Other groups and the projects they worked on include the following:
Career development – Malorie Raether, Grace Opp and Emily Witte. They focused on building career development skills for elementary, middle and high school students throughout Alexandria Public Schools.

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Community awareness – Faith Odland, Emma Paulson and Lauren Revering. They raised over $40,000 ($20,000 came from a State Farm matching grant) to help support Habitat for Humanity's mission.

Alexandria Area DECA students, middle, Brenna Eggebraaten, Rachel Bowen and Wes Schabel, won third place in the Fish Bowl competition.

Contributed photo

Business solutions – Ellen Sansted, Savannah Auran and Mason Gorghuber. They partnered with the Hoops District in Alexandria to help the business create innovative marketing strategies to drive growth.

Business operations – Autumn Ehlert, Lexi Piche and Paislee Dummer. They partnered with Central Specialities to improve its recruiting, onboarding, hiring and retaining practices.

School-based enterprise – Aubrie Johnson and Grace Bugher. They worked directly in Cardinal Fab to help improve business systems and marketing activities.

By Celeste Edenloff

Celeste Edenloff is the special projects editor and a reporter for the Alexandria Echo Press. She has lived in the Alexandria Lakes Area since 1997. She first worked for the Echo Press as a reporter from 1999 to 2011, and returned in 2016 to once again report on the community she calls home.

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