On Wednesday, April 26th, 8 students from MVAOCOU’s Business Professionals of America (BPA) Chapter flew out of Omaha to Los Angeles for the Annual BPA National Leadership Conference. The students qualified for the conference at the State Leadership Conference in Des Moines in February.
The conference was held in the Hilton Anaheim and kicked off Wednesday night with opening ceremonies and a keynote address from Michael Ivanov who spoke about smashing fears, limitations, and passive, excuse-oriented mindsets in order to set yourself up for career success. Students also interacted with students from other parts of the country by trading state collector’s pins. The pins were a great way for them to break the ice and meet new people from diverse backgrounds.
On Thursday, Jacob Mitchell competed in Advanced Word Processing while the other students headed to Disneyland. Don’t feel bad for Jake…he got to watch the Anaheim Angels take on the Oakland A’s following his competition.
Friday was the big competition day for MVAOCOU. Throughout the morning, Lizzy Hamann took a Parliamentary Procedure Concepts test, Patience Winsor took a Medical Diagnostic Coding test, Sophia Schumacher competed in Intermediate Word Processing and Health Administration Procedures, Sara Rosener competed in Fundamental Spreadsheet Applications, Molly Fitzpatrick presented in Health Administration Leadership Special Topics, and Ashley Rosener, Maycie Howland, and Molly Fitzpatrick attended the Torch Awards Ceremony where they earned BPA’s highest honor for leadership and service. Following their busy day of testing, the group headed to Huntington Beach to explore the pier, eat dinner and watch the sunset over the ocean.
The group had all day Saturday to explore the area. They joined a whale watching tour where they saw two large pods of dolphins and a cow/calf pair of whales, then headed to Knott’s Berry Farm for the afternoon. The conference’s awards ceremony concluded the conference that night. Unfortunately, no MVAOCOU students placed in the top 10 in their competitions at the national level.
The group, accompanied by two amazing chaperones, Angie Rosener & Tammy Flanigan, and their Advisor, Angie Sass, headed home on Sunday.