Pleasant Valley High School senior Jaxon Havens is once again representing the school district at the Future Business Leaders of America national competition.

Havens has been in FBLA throughout high school and has competed against 280 schools in the state.

“I really like being involved in FBLA,” he said.

Pleasant Valley High School ranks second in the state in FBLA wins.

Last year, Havens went to nationals, and this year, he won first place at the state competition in the organizational leadership event.

“Organizational leadership is really interesting in how it’s based in sociology and group patterns,” he said.

Organizational leadership is all about acting as a leader within a business. It involves managing people, managing a team. It’s talks about different models related to sociology, people working in groups, seeing the relationship between a leader and those on the team. It also explores how different styles of leadership adapt to different situations.

“For him to come back after having a national championship, I’m just over the moon about it,” said Denise Hopely, the club adviser. “He didn’t settle for just OK, he came back and tried again, and that’s the tenacity of this young man.”

Like states, the national competition is a virtual event again this year. The students take their tests online. Those that know their field the best win. The competition also includes speakers, and an awards ceremony that also will be held virtually.

Hopely said there were other students from the PVHS group who placed in the top 10, but Havens is the only one to be going to nationals. The top four move on to nationals.

She said it’s been a challenge to get the students together for meetings this year, but Havens has been instrumental in the success of the chapter. He would find study materials online and share them with the other FBLA members. There are about 90 events in all.

“We’re very proud of him,” Hopely said. “He supports all of our students in FBLA. He thinks of others first.”

In addition to FBLA, Havens volunteers at the West End Food Pantry, serves as treasurer of National Honor Society, plays the tenor saxophone in concert and jazz band, and performs in dramas and musicals. He was the male lead, Skye Masterson, in the school’s musical this year, “Guys and Dolls.”

“He was phenomenal,” Hopely said.

Last, but certainly not least, Havens is in the running for salutatorian of his graduating class. In the fall, he will be attending classes at Yale University.

What are the key to his success? Havens said he’s been really driven.

“I attribute that to I’m a first-generation college student,” he said.

Havens said his parents are very hard working, but they didn’t have the money to go to college.

“They worked really hard to get me to the spot where I am, so everything I do is for myself but it’s also in a way a thank-you to my parents.”

Havens intends to major in cellular, molecular and developmental biology. In the long term, he wants to go into medicine, in particular medical research. He wants to be in the lab with the cells.

As far as applying the organizational leadership skills he’s learned in FBLA to a career, Havens said he can see himself in a leadership role someday.

“I think I work well in a team. I could manage a group,” he said.