On May 3-6, 32 CHS students will travel to Atlanta, Georgia to compete in the ICDC, or International Career Development Conference for DECA. This conference will feature both written and role-play competitions based on marketing, business management and administration, hospitality and tourism and finance themes.

According to Richard Reid, DECA sponsor and business teacher, he is very proud of Carmel’s performance at the DECA State competition. Carmel finished in second place behind Munster High School.

“I was really excited about it. I thought they did really well. Obviously our goal was to win, but at the same time, we came really close. It was 141 to 131,” Reid said.

Junior Cassidy Evanson, who qualified for the ICDC in the Business Services Operations Research category, said that she is very excited to be able to compete in Atlanta. Evanson qualified along with group members and juniors Katelyn Davis and Grant Roberts.

“This is my first time doing DECA, and we worked so hard, so I’m really glad that we have the opportunity to go to internationals,” Evanson said.

In terms of preparation for ICDC, Reid said that students who did written events are able to resubmit their papers and will continue to transform their presentations to make them more effective. For the role-play students, Reid said they will practice their skills during SRT and after school.

Senior Bailey Padgett, who qualified for ICDC in the International Business Plan category, also said that she is working hard to get ready for ICDC. Padgett worked together in a partnership with senior Bailey Kennedy.

“We are going to revise our 30 page paper that we had to write and revise our presentation. We are very excited for nationals because we’ve put a lot of work into our proposal and it is great that it paid off for us, but we hope to do even better in Atlanta,” Padgett said.

According to Reid, the ICDC will host 12,000 students from around the globe.

“It’s very competitive. The level of role-play scenarios gets more intense and more difficult. For papers, nothing really changes except the quality of the competition, they’ve just got stiffer competition now,” Reid said.

Padgett said she agrees that the level of competition will be much tougher.

“There will be a lot of people there who are hoping to do well,” Padgett said, “But we have an innovative idea and we are able to work hard, so I think we have a good shot at doing well.”