Eleven Bend High School students will be making their way to the national competition of DECA, an organization for students who want to pursue careers in marketing, management and entrepreneurship, in April.

The students qualified for the event after placing within the top three of the categories that they competed in at the state competition in Portland, which ran from March 4 to March 7.

”I’m really excited that they’re going,” said Kristen Torkelson, adviser of the Bend High School chapter. ”They’re really a great group of kids.”

Forty-three students from the Bend High chapter went to the State Career Development Conference. The students competed in categories such as retail-marketing research, fashion merchandising, advertising, and hospitality and recreational-marketing research.

Bend High School was the only Central Oregon chapter that competed at the state competition, said Trina Lee, primary state adviser for DECA in Oregon.

The students presented their projects in front of a panel of judges. They used poster boards and PowerPoint in their presentations. The projects were scored on the written document and on oral presentation.

The proposals and strategies used in the presentations were based on hypothetical situations.

Senior Lindsi Cagan, 17, won first place in her category in hospitality and recreational marketing research. She did her project on the Sage Spring Spa at the Sunriver Resort, where she works part time.

She said she composed a study based on the customer-service offerings the resort gave and compared those findings to other competitors. She also created a promotional campaign.

She said doing her project on the Sage Spring Spa made it easier for her to gather research.

”I had a lot of good contacts,” she said. ”I know a lot of background with the resort.”

This will be Lindsi’s second time going to the national competition. Last year, she qualified in two categories.

Senior Shaundra Watson, 18, will also be making her second trip to nationals this year.

Watson and Courtney Black, 18, placed second this year at the state competition in the business-services marketing category. They created a promotional plan for Electric Beach, a tanning salon.

Fredrick ”Vaughn” Robison, vice president of the Bend High chapter, placed second the hospitality and recreational marketing research category.

Vaughn, 17, did his project on a horse operating business, Travis Wigen Performance Horses, located in Turner.

He did a study on the satisfaction of customer-service offerings at the business. With the findings from the survey, he was able to make a proposal of new customer-service offerings.

Unlike his peers, Vaughn did his presentation using only a poster board and not combined with PowerPoint.

”I felt that it would be better for me to convey all the information through speaking,” he said, ”instead of having the judges read off the PowerPoint display.”

The students said they were excited to be going to the next round in competition. They said they were not able to do it without the support of their adviser, Torkelson, or ”T,” as they referred to her.

”She’s our backbone,” Lindsi said.

Before the students could go to nationals, which is from April 27 to May 2 in Dallas, they need to raise $700 a piece to cover registration fees, airfare and hotel expenses.

Natasha Luff, 18, Bend High’s chapter president, said the group plans on going to local businesses for sponsorships.

”We want to have the community’s support to help us get there,” she said.