At State, two competitors from our school made it on stage, sophomores Owen Keller and Zachary Johannes. Keller placed fifth at State for the Principles of Business Management event and is continuing on to the international competition. Along with Keller, Johannes placed eighth for the same event, Principles of Business Managegement, although unfortunately did not place within top six to move on to the international competition. This is an accomplishment for both individuals to place so highly as they competed against about 40 other students.

In addition to competitions, sophomore Seth Wilson went to State as our leadership delegate. Wilson attended a two day leadership academy that he will attend again at internationals with students from around the world.

SCHS DECA competed in an event called Small Business Enterprise which is the school store, The Galley. Throughout the school year there is a project due in early January that senior Jayden Carey competed in. Carey wrote a 20 page report covering three standards set by DECA, this involved gathering statistics, pictures, and overall information about The Galley. As a result of this project, The Galley received their gold recertification which makes the third year in a row of earning that achievement. Carey will be going to the international competition and competing there for Small Business Enterprises in addition to doing a one day academy for food service and presenting to a judge the next day on one of the standards that DECA sets.

Senior Jack Finch is a three year DECA member and applied for and was awarded a thousand dollar scholarship from Missouri DECA at the State competition. Throughout the years at SCHS, Simmons has never had another student earn this making it a huge accomplishment for Finch. 

SCHS had also placed third in the state for our school’s contributions to The Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA), in which senior Colleen Ney went on stage and accepted the trophy.

Lastly, throughout the school year, two different chapter campaigns that are set by National DECA were completed. SCHS received recognition on the jumbotron at State along with a plaque and a pennant.

April 12-14, State qualifiers from SCHS FBLA traveled to Springfield, Missouri, to compete at State.

At State, 19 students made it on stage with 14 of those people qualifying for Nationals. Students going to nationals include: Renato Restrepo second place in Advertising, Jayden Carey third place in HR Management, Owen Keller third place in Intro Marketing Concepts, Zachary Johannes fourth place and Addison Blair second place in Intro Retail and Merchandising, Kaylen Aubin, James Jackson, Charlotte Kulma, Asia Wright and Jason Razor fourth place in Parlimentary Procedure, Abe Hamed first place in Project Management and lastly Zachary Johannes, Avery Utt and Seth Wilson fifth place in Website Coding and Development. 

Students who made it on stage, but did not qualify within top four to go to Nationals include: Owen Keller, Jaxon Hopkins and Sebastian Restrepo eighth place in Banking and Financial Systems, Emma Shatro eighth place in Real Estate and Kennedi Crigler seventh place in Tech Support.

All students at State did an amazing job and took time to prepare for competition by studying for tests, preparing for a presentation or roleplay, or even taking all year to prepare for an event such as the community service group.