The Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) State Competition for Maryland this year was held in March. These competitions are ranked regionally and state-wide, giving students business experience.

     The FBLA is an organization intended to help high school students prepare for careers in business. According to the FBLA website, the program offers benefits such as discounts, scholarships, publications, and awards.

     Grace Herron, Jessica Fannin, and Jackie Bultman, juniors, made a video on the topic of journalism for their submission.

     “Going into this competition we had absolutely no idea what our submission topic should be about,” starts Bultman. “I had the idea to base it off an article I had written for journalism. From there as a group, we tried in our best way possible to emulate a regular news broadcast; picking out small details and deciding the order in which our topic would be perceived the most realistically.”

     They divided up the roles in their group to report on different topics such as barn animals, Tractor day, and the agricultural program at North Harford. “We wrote out a script for what to say in the video and met up at the barns to film with the animals,” Fannin says. “It was something really fun to do with my friends, especially with online school being pretty uneventful. We put a lot of work into organizing everything and it [is] something I’m proud of!”

          One of the group’s favorite parts of the event was that they got to accomplish and meet a goal together. “We researched what makes North Harford unique and did a segment on our animals and our tractors, then recorded our speeches,” Herron explains. “It felt great to participate!

     “I got to work with some of my favorite people, so of course the process was super fun and gave me real world experience,” Bultman says. “I really enjoy FBLA because it gives us a chance to explore new business related topics that are not always offered as classes at school. Also everyone I have met through FBLA and its events have been the best people!”

     Due to COVID-19, FBLA events this year could not be held how they normally would be. “We haven’t had the opportunity to enjoy all of the competitiveness,” Bultman says. “Everything has been online.”

     The group emailed their entry to the judges, and later found out that they placed second regionally, and fifth state-wide.