BELHAVEN — Rigorous preparation, calm and collected poise and sweet victory — that is the story for students at Northside High School who competed in Greensboro at the 60^th State Future Business Leaders of America Leadership Conference in March.

Students participated in leadership workshops and competed with others from across the state for recognition in various business and technology events, emerging successful. More than 1,700 high school and middle school students were in attendance.

Savannah Bunn placed first in the state in Word Processing. Bunn, who credits preparation to her victory, said the majority of the schools in competition were larger or technological schools.

“I spent hours studying previous objective tests, but I focused on practicing at least a dozen business documents for my production test,” Bunn said.

Trenton Clayton and Katlyn Caton also earned a first-place finish in their Desktop Publishing event.

 

Additional winners were: Kirbyanne Sherman, fifth place in Intro to Parliamentary Procedures; Caleb Alligood, sixth place in Health Care Management; Sarah Lee, sixth place in Agribusiness; Rachel Lang, 10th place in Business Math; and Kody Jefferson, Top 10 Spreadsheet Applications.

According to Jennifer Bunn, FBLA advisor for Northside High School, students also participated in open events, which allow all students at the conference to take an exam without pre-qualification. Rachel Lang and Meredith Boyd scored top 10 in the state for Multimedia and Webpage Design (MaWD); Sarah Lee scored top 10 for Office 2010. Additional NHS students who earned a proficiency of 80 percent or higher in the MaWD open test were Caleb Alligood, Jethzabel Alonso, Savannah Bunn, Trenton Clayton and Kirbyanne Sherman.

Bunn said Clayton, Caton and Savannah Bunn will travel to Nashville, Tenn., to represent North Carolina and Northside High School at the National FBLA Leadership Conference, June 29 to July 2.