The DECA team is sending several students to state this year after victory at the district competition. With 24 students competing, over half qualified to advance to the state wide competition in Kansas City this spring. Behind the team’s success is Tom Ratliff, the staff sponsor for the team. 

Ratliff is the marketing teacher at MHS. He spent eight years working in the sports business in various jobs and he holds several degrees in business management. He began his career at Mehlville last spring. When asked what category he’d personally like to compete in for DECA he said “It would have to be the sport and entertainment individual series. Possibly the sports and entertainment written project.” 

Ratliff has sponsored the DECA program for two years now and has seen exponential growth in the program.

“Last year I had eight students compete in districts, four in state, and one advanced to internationals,” said Ratliff.

This year the team sent 24 to districts, 19 to state, and is hoping to send around five competitors to internationals in Florida this spring. 

While thinking back on the team’s success thus far Ratliff said the competition went  “Better than [he] could possibly imagine.”

He’s especially proud of “Seeing how well the teams prepared and cared about putting together a successful event.” 

 Overall, this has been a successful year for DECA, as well as Mr. Ratliff, who’s looking forward to seeing “DECA members grow, compete, and have fun.”

He also hopes “to add to the total members in DECA. Hopefully continuing to showcase how much fun DECA members have at the competition and seeing all DECA has to offer” both this year, and into the future.