Gonzaga Students Compete for DECA Awards

SPOKANE, Wash. – Twenty-one Gonzaga University students were among nearly 1,500 international and American students who competed in the recent Collegiate DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America) International Career Development Conference in Anaheim, California.

Competing in six events against students from 165 universities in the United States, Canada and China, the following Gonzaga students advanced to the finals of the April 19-22 competition:

• Kelsey Forman, a junior business major and Spanish minor with a concentration in marketing, placed second in the travel and tourism event.
• Placing in the top 10 in the retail management event were seniors Colin Phelps,majoring in psychology, economics and philosophy with a concentration in entrepreneurship, and Kari Dutcher, a business major with concentrations in international business and operations and supply chain management.
• Placing in the top 10 in the emerging technologies event were seniors Marissa Vander Griend,a business major with concentrations in finance, marketing and human resource management, and Julia Golovchanova, a business major with concentrations in economics, finance and human resource management.
• Sophomores Lexi Kozyra, a special education major, and accounting major Annabella Labate placed in the top 10 in the event planning category.
• In addition, Gena Hoxha, Gonzaga’s DECA adviser, was elected chair of the Washington Marketing & Management Educators Association.

For more information, please contact AJ Hawk at (509) 313-7036.