The Gazette-Enterprise

MARION — For the 22nd consecutive year, a Marion High School Business Professionals of America (BPA) student will represent Texas at the national competition.

MHS senior Brett Penshorn came in first in advanced word processing, edging out about 48 other Texas competitors in the event at the state BPA contest in Lubbock, March 2-4.

“They give you an hour and a half to do five word processing jobs — things like mail merge, letters, envelopes — all kinds of good stuff,” Penshorn said. “It helps that I can type really fast. They have a style and reference manual that you go by.”

Penshorn and his teacher, Debi Blakey, will head to Orlando, Fla., for the national BPA competition May 10-14.

BPA contest events are developed by business people and reflect skills commonly used in business.

“I heard a lot of people talk about [BPA] and how good it is,” Penshorn said. “It’s one of the few organizations where you actually use what you learn after you get out of high school. You can use it in real life, and that’s what really appeals to a lot of people.”

The Marion BPA presentation management team shared its entry at last week’s school board meeting.

The team of Sarah Posey, Justin Lopez, Sarah Basha and Kelsey Brawner placed third at the state contest, which makes their team the first national alternate in case the first- or second-place teams are unable to attend the national contest.

The team impressed the school board with its contest entry, which was a presentation to promote a new minor league baseball team in Duluth, Mich.

The team created a PowerPoint presentation including a team name, logo, merchandise marketing plan, stadium and ticket information, as well as providing visitor information about the Duluth area.

MHS student Kansas Dailey placed seventh at state in the individual presentation management event, and Courtney Boedeker placed seventh in the individual economic research project contest.

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