Gallery • 4 Photos
Hailey Abba
Bloomsburg FBLA collegiate giving a slide show presentation on what FBLA is like in collage.
Stroudsburg High School’s (SHS) Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) club went to Mount Airy Casino Resort for the first time on December 17, 2025, to find out which members got to advance to the state level of competition in April 2026.
In the past, the Regional Leadership Conference (RLC) has been held after school at Palmerton High School. Still, the advisors in charge of SHS’s region, Region 21, wanted to experiment with a new location.
Students arrived at Mount Airy Resort and Convention Center at 8:50.
They were taken to the main ballroom, and shortly after, encouraged to play a Kahoot about FBLA.
Region 21 President Sofia De Angelis, of Palmerton High School, briefly made opening remarks and then introduced the 2026 Regional Officer Candidates: Zoey Charles and Arianna Onofre for President, Jacob Pachter and Noelanie Sepulveda for Vice President, Breslin Beck for Secretary, and Nathan Marlatt for Treasurer. They had all given speeches as to why they felt they should be elected for their positions, and their results were announced just before the award ceremony.
Right after their speeches, the keynote speaker, Toni Meli, gave a speech on character. He had spoken on trial and error, perseverance, and overcoming struggles. Shortly after his speech, all the students were separated into their respective groups to either eat lunch or attend workshops.
The workshops included Grandpa Joe’s Candy Shop, The Basics of Investing, FBLA Collegiate Roundtable, State Project: Building Bridges to Fight Hunger, and Banking on Your Financial Success.
The Collegiate Roundtable had college students from Bloomsburg University. They went on to explain that the fundamentals of FBLA are just as high school level but more advanced.
One of the more exciting workshops was Grandpa Joe’s Candy Shop, led by the CEO and founder, Christopher J. Beers. He spoke about how he started his business and gave advice to anyone who was thinking about becoming an entrepreneur.
Beers showed videos about the way he advertised his budding business through the use of ducks and received many enthusiastic questions about his interesting public relations schemes.
After the workshops had concluded, the award ceremony commenced.
The students who placed at regionals and can advance to states are:
1st Place Winners:
Davin Humphrey (Computer Applications)
Faith Pierre, Andrew Whyte, Kylie Youman (Event Planning)
Nyle Barron (Future Business Educator)
Grayson Taylor (Introduction to Business Procedures)
Emma Sexton (Introduction to FBLA)
Austin Fritz (Introduction to Information Technology)
Sasha Castle (Human Resource Management)
Ella Finlayson, Hridita Hossain, Kiesha Leonard (Visual Design)
Aiden Escobar (Impromptu Speaking)
Laim Pilcher (Introduction to Public Speaking)
Soham Patel (Introduction to Retail and Merchandising)
Mason Ulmer (Securities and Investment)
Tess Nowosad and Kara Schomberg (Social Media Strategies)
Karis Wilkins (Real Estate)
Giancarlo Shakai (Public Administration and Management)
2nd Place Winners:
Keala Maronpot, Sophie Piggot (Broadcast Journalism)
Lydia DiPaola (Financial Planning)
Felicity Guepet (Introduction to Information Technology)
Genevieve Butler (Introduction to Parliamentary Procedure)
Iris Heter (Organisational Leadership)
Adrianan Gudzovaty (Retail Management)
AJ Roman (Sports and Entertainment Management)
Jordyn Lippin-Worelds (Project Management)
3rd Place Winners:
Hailey Abba (Accounting)
Allison Fazio (Healthcare Administration)
Cameron Swen (Introduction to FBLA)
Hassan Abdelhamid (Personal Finance)
Sandy Gravesande (Public Administration and Management)
Etka Acar (Advertising)
4th Place Winners:
Christoper Tretheway (Accounting)
Julia Saurman (Business Law)
Leyla Yilmaz (Healthcare Administration)
Lile Bekaia (Cybersecurity)
Chudi Ogbolu (Data science & AI)
Dominic Decusatis (Economics)
5th Place Winners:
Morgan Callender (Healthcare Administration)
Grace Carr (Organizational Leadership)
Haneef Khan (Personal Finance)
Kingston Jones (Securities and Investments)
In total, 39 SHS students qualified for the state leadership conference.