Prairie’s Business Professionals of America (BPA) students continued their pursuit of National Qualification by competing at the State Leadership Conference Sunday, February 16 – Tuesday, February 18 in Des Moines. This year’s chapter has 60+ members, with 56 attending and competing at State. Prairie delegates placed in numerous contests thus qualifying many to attend the National Leadership Conference in Orlando in May.
While at State, students competed in 70+ events including Broadcast News, Video Production, Finance, Management Information Systems, Business Administration, Digital Communications, Marketing/ Management/Communications. Prairie students dedicated their time by taking “open test events”, attending candidate forums, listening to candidate speeches, and electing their 2025-2026 State Officer slate. Prairie’s chapter activity featured game night with BINGO! The conference ended with a closing session and awards ceremony.
Advisors Kim Hynek, Mary Gudenkauf and Caleb Rheingans worked with students in preparation for this competition. Prairie’s chapter began in 1998 with just four members. Today Prairie has 60+ members, and is proud to have one of the largest state chapters and participants in Des Moines.
Business Professionals of America is the leading CTSO (Career and Technical Student Organization) for students pursuing careers in business management, office administration, information technology and other related career fields. BPA has 45,000 members in over 1,800+ chapters in 25 states, China, Peru and Puerto Rico. BPA is a co-curricular organization that supports business and information technology educators by offering co-curricular exercises based on national standards.
Congratulations to Prairie’s members who competed at 2025 State Leadership Conference. National Qualifiers are highlighted in red.