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Forsyth high schools take top awards at regional business conference
FCS

Students from Forsyth County’s five brick-and-mortar high schools are advancing to a state business leadership conference after recently competing in the Georgia Future Business Leaders of America, or FBLA, regional competition.

Georgia FBLA, an affiliate of Future Business Leaders of America-Phi Beta Lambda Inc., is a nonprofit “committed to preparing today’s students for success in business leadership.”

Each year, Georgia FBLA holds regional and state conferences, which serve as qualifiers for the national leadership conference.

Region 11 — which includes Forsyth — held its conference in Suwanee on Jan. 19.

“We have a very competitive region which includes excellent high schools from Forsyth, Hall, Gwinnett, and Walton counties,” said Carla Yonk, South Forsyth High School’s FBLA advisor. “We had over 100 students advance from [the regional leadership conference] to [the state leadership conference] plus additional members who start with state events.”

At the regional leadership conference, or RLC, Lambert High School’s chapter claimed third place and was awarded 61 individual medals.
Forty-eight students will move forward to the state leadership conference, or SLC.

At the RLC, Lambert also secured the title of “Largest Chapter Membership” with 500 current members. This ranks them third on the national FBLA’s “Big Ten” chapters.

Big Ten is based on chapter membership nationwide and according to national FBLA, “from September 1 to April 1, the top ten local chapters (based on paid membership) will be posted each week. Chapters appearing on the final list will be recognized at the National Leadership Conference with a certificate of recognition.”

Two Florida high schools rank above Lambert in largest membership.

South also appears on FBLA’s “Big Ten,” coming in at number seven.

And, for the third time in a row, the school clinched the title of Region 11 Sweepstakes Champion, while also having the largest number of SLC qualifiers in the state.

Of 197 entrants, the school came away with 111 SLC qualifications, with a number of members qualifying in more than one event.

“Seeing our students perform their presentations after working on them for weeks in preparation of RLC is very rewarding,” Yonk said. “We also enjoy watching the responses of students when they win awards and the anticipation of how we will do as a chapter.

“Being awarded the Region 11 Sweepstakes is the highest honor for the chapter. We won for the third year in a row [and] Lambert and SFHS took 2 of the top 3 positions in Region 11.”

West Forsyth High School, Forsyth Central High School and North Forsyth High School also had members advance to the SLC, though teams are smaller at those schools.

The SLC is scheduled to run March 12-14 in Athens, Georgia.