Lemont High School's FBLA Chapter Dominates Regional, Eyes State

 chapter of Future Business Leaders of America is looking forward to the state competition after dominating the inaugural Central Northern Area Conference regional Jan. 21.

The regional, hosted by Lemont featured more than 160 competitors from 11 Chicago-area high schools. The one-day event included business and leadership training workshops and seminars, in additional to the competitive events.

Lemont took first place in 15 of the 23 events it entered, and collected 30 top-three finishes in all.

Taking first place in team events were:

• Seniors Brian McMahon and Shane Purtle (Emerging Business Issues)
• Seniors Matt Kowalczyk and Naem Mufarreh (Management Decision Making)
• Senior Brian White and Junior Tadas Vildziunas (Web Design)

Individual event winners were:

• Senior Nick Cottrell (Public Speaking 2)
• Senior Derek Ratulowski (Cyber Security)
• Senior Nick Theodore (Sports Management)
• Junior Michael Krueger (Accounting 1)
• Junior Michael Macek (Global Business)
• Junior Zack Reitz (Accounting 2)
• Sophomore Rebeca Bagdocimo (Public Speaking 1)
• Sophomore Nick Ciofalo (Business Procedures)
• Sophomore Sarah Lillwitz (Job Interview)
• Sophomore Rachel Papiernik (Management Information Systems)
• Freshman Simon Batistich (Introduction to Business Communication)
• Freshman Michael Vitt (Economics)

Lemont also had nine runner-up finishes:

• Juniors Nina Moeller, Justin Stanwyck and Dan Totura (Business Ethics)
• Juniors Tom Griffin and Katelyn Koehler (Entrepreneurship)
• Junior Ryan Gaffney (Personal Finance)
• Junior Conor Matthews (Public Speaking 2)
• Junior Joe Paloian (Accounting 2)
• Junior Ethan Parafink (Business Communications)
• Sophomore Lucas Heatherington (Accounting 1)
• Sophomore Lauren Kowalcyzk (Business Procedures)
• Sophomore Margaret Rogers (Management Information Systems)

Lemont students have captured multiple event titles each of the last two years at the FBLA State Leadership Conference. Last year, they competed in 23 events and .

FBLA is the largest business career student organization in the world and includes 215,000 students worldwide.

Lemont's FBLA chapter is co-sponsored by teachers John Aspel and Bill Mondrella. The team will compete March 30-31 at the 2012 Illinois FBLA State Leadership Conference in Decatur, IL.