North Creek High School Distributive Education Clubs of America students participated in their first-ever competition on Jan. 5 at Washington DECA’s Area 3 Competition, held at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue.

In all, 12 high schools participated, including North Creek, Inglemoor, Woodinville, Bothell, Mercer Island, Juanita, Eastside Catholic, Eastlake, Cedarcrest, Redmond, and Overlake.

North Creek DECA students have prepared for the competition for several months, not just in the classroom, but also in workshops and other competition-preparation activities. As a result, 18 North Creek High School students advanced to the state competition, which will be held in Bellevue from March 1 to 3.

There, students will have the opportunity to advance to DECA’s International Career Development Conference hosted in Atlanta from Apr. 21 to 24.

DECA is an association of marketing students focused on preparing emerging leaders for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality, management and entrepreneurship. There are over 215,000 high school DECA members from 3,500 schools throughout the world.