Jacksonville High School placed in the top 3 schools in Arkansas in Round 2 of the DECA Virtual Business Challenge on Tuesday, January 21, 2020. 

“This is a huge accomplishment for our DECA chapter!” DECA Adviser Jaime Briggs exclaimed before going on to say the chapter plans to expand on this success in future years.

The DECA Virtual Business Challenge allows high school students to test their skills within 7 particular fields, called tracks. Seniors Javon Grooms, who finished the event ranked 7th in the state, and Kasson Austin, who placed 225th in the nation, teamed up for the event to create a virtual mom and pop grocery store.

“We did terrible at first and had to start over,” Grooms admitted, “but we learned from the mistakes we made on the first attempt, and after that, it took off from there.” By the end of the four year simulation, the business had made almost five million in fun profit.

“We learned it takes a lot more to run a business than we thought, Participating in the competition helped us out by just having practice and gaining more knowledge on how to run a business” Grooms said.

Seniors Karyngton Benton, Jada Tyler, and Blair Wood Jones also participated in the event. 

DECA members are currently working hard to prepare for the state competition coming up in February, according to Briggs.

The Titan Foundation donated $500 to the Titan DECA chapter to help with funding for the state competition, presenting a check to the group on January 21, 2020.