A total of 94 of the high school's students participated in DECA’s Suffolk County Regional Competition on Jan. 4, competing against more than 1,400 students from 27 Suffolk County high schools. Deer Park boasted 29 trophy winners at the event, held at Suffolk County Community College, with another eight students earning honorable mention.
Nick Gallo and Andrew Siford earned first place in the Financial Services Team event, and Kayla Griffin earned first in Marketing Communications.
Chloe Rosenberg earned second place in Apparel & Accessories Marketing.
Third-place winners were Michael Mieses in Automotive Services Marketing, Stephen Lew and Vincent Verdile in Buying & Merchandising Team, William Buckley in Retail Merchandising, and Malique Papailler in Sports & Entertainment Marketing.
Other trophy winners included Ryan Byrne and Shamikh Rana in Accounting Applications; Valdy Flueriot in Automotive Services Marketing; David Batkiewicz in Business Finance; Amed Iqbal and Omar Rahim in Business Law & Ethics Team; Glenn Hope, Joewin James and Sean Stellin in Business Services Marketing; Kailey Tenn in Human Resources Management; Melanie Miranda and Badar Zaman in Marketing Communications; Nimra Salim and Aarvin Varghese in Principles of Business Management; Sean Sanchez and Dayanna Zuluaga in Principles of Finance; Jessica Siford in Principles of Hospitality; Nicole Bilello and Justin Finn in Principles of Marketing; and Ryan Verdile in Sports & Entertainment Marketing.
Honorable mentions went to Amar Qasir in Business Finance, Jamie Borah and Khabiba Shahid in Financial Services Team, Khaja Ibrahim and Catherine Taipe in Human Resources Management, Tyler Tesoriero in Principles of Hospitality, Alisha Suhail in Quick Serve Restaurant Management, and Vincent Aparicio in Restaurant & Food Service Management.
Their strong showing in these events provided Deer Park’s DECA winners with the opportunity to travel to Rochester in early March to compete in the State Career Conference against the state’s best business students. State winners will earn spots at the International Career Development Conference in Anaheim, California at the end of April.
“Congratulations to all of our participating students,” said business teacher and DECA adviser Gregory Menig. “They worked hard for their achievement and I look forward to seeing them compete at the state level.”