Lemont High School's FBLA Chapter Posts Six 'Top 10' Finishes at State

The  chapter of Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) placed among the top ten in six categories last month at the 2012 Illinois FBLA State Leadership Conference.

The conference, held March 30-31 in Decatur, attracted more than 1,300 students from more than 60 high schools across Illinois. Lemont had 17 students compete in 12 events.

Sophomore Rebeca Bagdocimo was Lemont’s top finisher in any event, as she finished as the runner-up in the Public Speaking 1 category. The school also had a pair of third-place finishers: senior Nick Cottrell in Public Speaking II and junior Zack Reitz in Accounting II.

Cottrell served as the FBLA State Vice President during the 2011-12 school year.

Other top-ten placements came from seniors Matt Kowalczyk and Naem Mufarreh, who teamed to finish seventh in Management Decision Making; and junior Michael Krueger (Accounting I) and freshman Simon Batistich (Introduction to Business Communications), each of whom were eighth in their respective categories.

The rest of Lemont’s state competitors included juniors Katelyn Koehler, Nina Moeller, Rachel Smith, Justin Stanwyck and Dan Totura; sophomores Jenny Hennig, Sarah Lillwitz, Alexandria McAdam and Margaret Rogers; and freshman Will Totura.

Serving as host of the inaugural Central Northern Area Conference regional in January, . The school took first place in 15 of the 23 events it entered, and collected 30 top-three finishes in all.

Lemont’s FBLA chapter is co-sponsored by teachers John Aspel and Bill Mondrella. Lemont students captured multiple event titles at the FBLA State Leadership Conference in both 2010 and 2011.

FBLA is the largest business career student organization in the world and includes 215,000 students worldwide. Illinois’ chapter of the FBLA may be found at www.fbla.gen.il.us.