By: Libby Nisley, Advisor

Seven students traveled to BPA Nationals in Anaheim, California last week after placing high enough to qualify for the event at the State competition in March. Nationals was a huge event this year, boasting 6,503 attendees from 23 states. There were 320 high school aged students attending from Montana.

Senior Mercy Brost competed in Business Law, Senior Alex Edwards in Computer Programming Concepts and Information Technology Concepts, and Senior April Wood in Intermediate Word Processing. Junior Mia Mader competed in Advanced Word Processing. Sophomore Emory Gatlin took part in the Health Administration Procedures exam. Then, Alex Edwards joined the Parliamentary Procedure Team of April, Mia, Becca Aye and Kayleigh Opstedahl to attempt to fill Marcus Mader's shoes in his absence and they gave their best effort in competition as well.

It was not all work for this accomplished group, though. They were able to go on a dolphin and whale watching tour out at Dana Point and saw hundreds of dolphins and a few whales out on the open sea.

The group visited Newport Beach and had some seafood and played in the sand and ocean. Some were able to do some shopping in the Disneyland area as well.

We enjoyed the sunny, warm weather and had a good competition overall.