Senior Callie Peterson has worked hard to be president of DECA and proceeded to lead her members of DECA to diamond status.
Peterson has been in DECA since she was a sophomore. One of her friends, Emilee Daniel, encouraged her to join. At the time, she had two teachers who were ecstatic about DECA: Christa Kalin and Tara Hansen. Together, they helped Peterson join DECA and compete in two events; retail merchandising and marketing and communication.
Kalin and Hansen have an abundance of experience with DECA. Kalin competed in DECA as a high schooler since her junior year, all the way through college. She has been a DECA advisor since 2014. Hansen competed in DECA when our high school was still named Superior Senior High and has been a DECA advisor since 2019.
Hansen felt, when she watched Peterson prepare for her events, she could see the work ethic and the perseverance to want to learn about the roleplays.
“You could just tell she had natural leadership abilities,” Hansen said, “She offers to help, even when she is not in her leadership position.”
During sophomore year, Peterson became DECA vice president, and she was nervous about competing for her first time. Even after the competition, she still felt all that pressure.
Peterson has worked very hard to get to where she is today. Once she became DECA president, she got right to work. Peterson made a goal of focusing on community service. The team receives points for doing community service tasks. This helped the team reach diamond status in the Diamond Dash.
“It’s a lot of trial and error,” Peterson said, “There isn’t really a rule book, plan, or schedule. It’s kind of up to the students to decide what the year is going to look like.”
In DECA there are many different types of roles to compete in. Peterson chose retail merchandising for her sophomore and junior year. This year, she chose to switch to marketing and communication.
The DECA group has improved with Peterson as president. The team’s test scores have increased from last year. Before, we would see scores in the lower 50s. This year, the scores are in the mid to high 60s.
“We put a lot of pressure this year on the diamond dash, of course, and [we] got diamond status for the first time ever for our chapter,” Kalin said.
Being in DECA, Peterson has learned more problem solving skills, thinks on her feet, advanced life skills, open mindedness and has more confidence. She confirmed that if she was given the option to be president again, she would take it.
“Don’t be scared of it. You get what you put into it and you can succeed even if you don’t know much about it. Try new things, and make sure to be creative and unique. The judges look for differences. You have to be different.”
