Carbon Career and Technical Institute’s Distributive Education Clubs of America students continued to exceed expectations and make their mark at the International Career Development Conference in April.

“We took seven students to Atlanta, Georgia, and we were among 19,000 high school students from across the United States, Canada, Guam, Germany, Mexico, China and Japan,” adviser Stephanie Barto said.

Members participated in testing and role-play scenarios in categories including Chapter Community Service Project, Public Relations and Chapter Awards.

Alyssa Halada, Alissa German and Rebekah Lorah, who participated in the Chapter Awards Project, said that their effort constituted nearly a year’s worth of work.

“It was crazy, because you had to stay organized,” Halada said. “If you did something in the beginning of the year, you needed to use it at the end of the year as well. You can’t lose anything, you have to keep track and make sure all the information is correct.”

Skyler Graver, who competed in the Public Relations section, presented a campaign near and dear to her heart — nontraditional students. When Graver first came to CCTI, she was fairly certain that she would pursue cosmetology. When she took a turn toward welding, she had a newfound passion, one that inspired her to promote the idea of nontraditional tracks to other students.

Clearly, that personal connection to a seldom-covered subject had an effect on her presentation at the DECA conference, as Graver finished in the top 20 out of 250 competitors.

“It was absolutely incredible. I didn’t really know if it would connect with my judges, but it really did. The lady I presented to, she seemed really into it, which was cool. And just talking to everyone else there, they would say, ‘Wow, that’s way out there.’ People were covering homelessness and other subjects that they do all the time, so this was different,” she said.

In fact, Graver’s presentation has already yielded real-world change. This summer, CCTI will be hosting the first nontraditional summer camp.

“I was pretty excited about that. The director has spoken to me about it, and I was amazed, it was actually happening. To see that I’m actually making a difference is absolutely incredible,” Graver said.

Not only did the conference offer a stage for high-end competition, but it opened up the doors for students to learn even more about communications skills, team building skills, chapter management, ways to work with different personality types and methods to maximize social media use, among other subjects.

“We learned about leadership, and how to really sell yourself in the academies. They taught us the personal skills you need to know if you’re going to be in the business world,” Lorah said.

Rachael Dickson, who worked on the Chapter Community Service Project with Shannon Higgins and Alyssa Stamets, said that she found the interaction with other DECA students to be the biggest draw of the conference.

“The most valuable thing was just being around so many other people from all these different states and countries. It was so cool seeing how everyone presented their projects and how they interacted with each other. It was a really nice place to be,” she said.

Higgins, who plans to work in digital animation or graphic design, said that she was able to pick up some valuable skills that she will be able to apply in her future.

“It was really good to be able to work with people from all different areas, because in marketing, you need to learn how to adapt to different environments, and so I think it was a really good opportunity to understand the field before you get into it,” she said.

Barto said that she was elated with her students’ successes, and for all that they took in from the conference. With each year, she said, CCTI’s DECA team is getting stronger and stronger, using what they have learned from the association’s conferences and one another.

“All of that experience is going to make them more marketable as they move forward into the job market. Whether they’re applying to college or a job, they now have that confidence when it comes to speaking with adults, answering questions and being able to interact. I think it’s a true success for all of them, and I’m proud of all of them, and of course I’m extremely proud of the ones that advanced,” she said.