WELCOME BACK!
By:
Bobby Hobbs
As
we begin the new year Virginia
DECA takes the rank of the LARGEST state association in the United
States. Our large number of winners at the International
Career Development Conference (most participants in the country)
secured our status as a DECA dynasty, and it is up to you this year
to strive for excellence and uphold Virginia DECA’s legendary tradition
of excellence. I and the other members of this year's State
Action Team are looking forward to working with chapters across
the state, and I am positive this year will be one of the most successful
in Virginia DECA’s history.
It is also my pleasure to inform you that Virginia DECA has the opportunity
this year to bring back an important piece of DECA history. In 1937
a group of Waynesboro businessmen decided that a community-wide training
course was needed to educate workers in retail selling, merchandising,
display, advertising, and management. They extended a request to
Miss Louise Bernard, already well known in the national retail field,
to organize and teach these classes. These classes attracted the
attention of the Virginia Department of Education, and Miss Bernard
was called to Richmond to establish Distributive Education in High
schools. At this point DECA was born. Upon DECA’s introduction to
public school systems, Waynesboro, the birthplace of DECA, constructed
four signs in the shape of a Diamond, and posted them at each of the
four entrances to the city. This past summer while the State
Action Team was meeting; the teachers journeyed to Waynesboro and made a grim discovery.
The signs had been taken down, and the local Waynesboro High School
no longer has a DECA chapter. As part of this year’s program
of work, Virginia DECA will put forth an effort to redesign the
signs, and have them re-posted at a ceremony on Virginia DECA Day.
The year is just beginning, and New Frontiers are just over
the horizon. I urge all of you to work up to your potential; I know
we can set the bar higher and once again outperform every other state
in the U.S.! It is up to you this year to get involved and…EXCEED
EXPECTATIONS!
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