As Erie High School continues to dominate in athletics going into our 5A year, the clubs are also flourishing with new victories. New to the school this year, Erie is holding a new club called Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA). This uprising club is preparing high school students for the business world in college or as a career.
FBLA in itself is the chance for talented and passionate groups of students from various 
schools to compete against other schools FBLA clubs with the same prompt at different conferences throughout the year. Students then create a presentation, project, or perform tests based on the prompt and proceed to compete for the #1 spot.
Taryn Petruncola is a senior at EHS and the Co-president of FBLA along with senior Isabella Palacios. Petruncola heard about FBLA being a club held at many high schools in Colorado and she thought it would be a great program addition for Erie. Her sophomore year of high school, she contacted Eries principal Josh Griffin, but unfortunately the idea fell through. But, despite this hiccup, last year Petruncola brought the idea to light through an interest meeting and Erie started their branch of the FBLA program.
“So I went to an interesting meeting last year and then joined it this year. I’ve always been interested in business, so I’ve always wanted to have a program like this at school,” explained Petruncola.
A career interest that wanted to be explored by one student became an impressive history made, when they attended their first competition not expecting or knowing anything.
Erie High School’s first ever FBLA team in their first season got first place for the social media prompt. Palacios, Co-president of FBLA, expresses, “I want to say, I guess maybe because we were the underdogs, we put in so much effort that it paid off”.
Being one of the smallest teams for FBLA in Colorado and to be a first year team who won their first competition created an incredible and impressive underdog story for this team. FBLA is very prestigious and a specific skill that needs to be apparent to be a member of this club, ranging from business career skills to maintaining good communication and presentation skills.
“I thought it’d be a great experience, and it opens up a bunch of opportunities because it goes into college too. And I’m also going to be a business major.” Jackie Valentine, senior at EHS, and the Social Media Manager of FBLA voiced.
“I am gonna go to CU Boulder for business in the fall, and I do want to pursue a career in business. So when I found out that there was a club at Erie that revolved all around business, I thought, oh this is perfect,” Palacios emphasized.
The FBLA club is a great way for students to get familiar with the business world, as well as a great opportunity for college major and minor decision making. All clubs at Erie need a teacher to supervise and sponsor said club, and being the personal finance teacher at EHS, Stephen Aguirre was the top choice.
Due to his professional and educational background, along with his passion for the subject, Aguirre was excited to fulfill this role. “I am certified for career and technical education, and there was a huge demand in the community to start a chapter of FBLA. I was kind of the default person to do it,” Aguirre explained.
FBLA as a club is lucky to have a teacher that is experienced and does his best to help contribute to the club as much as possible and to lead them to more wins. Aguirre went to their competition as Erie’s official chaperone, but was unexpectedly asked to judge. Even though he went and wasn’t expecting to be asked to judge right off the bat, now he has a better idea of how the FBLA competition system works to bring back to the team.
In terms of how the team functions, although it is mostly the members duty’s to participate, Aguirre is still there for moral support and reassurance of ideas. “I’m there, of course, as a supervisor. However a good leader figures, encourages, or nudges the students just enough to get them to do the work that needs to be done, and then doing enough constructive criticism/motivation, is crucial. But with most of our kids here, there’s no criticism, it’s just making it better” Aguirre expressed.
A club as important as FBLA it’s crucial to have a responsive and educated leader. As Aguirre talks very highly of his students, he’s excited for another year and he’s excited to see how this program grows throughout the next few years.
To be a part of FBLA you need to be taking a career and technical education course, which would be the class Personal Finance at EHS, and there are a few 10th graders on the team who have not yet taken the course, so therefore they are not eligible to compete in competitions.
Despite a lack of members who could participate, there is still light at the end of the tunnel for this team even though the main three members are graduating this year. Petruncola’s younger brother, Brendan Petruncola, is a freshman this year but he plans to help lead the club through the rest of his high school career.
“[Taryn] is definitely the reason why I joined, but she’s not the reason why I stayed. She kind of just pulled me in, but it turns out it is a lot of fun,” he shared.
Aguirre is trying to be able to change around some students’ schedules to expand the greatness of the FBLA club, so that more members can be eligible in their underclassmen years. “By having more 10th graders involved in career and technical education courses, then that means more of them can pick and choose competitions they can participate in. So that’s the goal, it’s to have more than just one team going and more than just one event,” Aguirre foreshadows.
As a first year club in high school, they are always striving for more and to make more history for the future students at Erie. They are also trying to expand the amount of students who get the opportunity to dip their toes into a potential future career or college major/minor.
“So I would really like to see this become a big thing at Erie, I think this has the capability of becoming a powerhouse throughout FBLA…And I think that we really work toward it, especially my brother and his and all the other freshmen in there can definitely get it going.” Petruncola wishes.
A growing club here at Erie hopes to grow and advance throughout the years and generations to come. To continue making history for the club FBLA is a goal and a hope from everyone involved.
“It would just be nice to have a variety in what we’re competing in for next year…we’re going to try to do more outreach.” Palacios expresses.
Since FBLA is a group based club, having more members would expand the future of FBLA. The competitions have many categories and prompts to compete in, and if Erie brings in more members who are interested it would help grow the FBLA community.
FBLA state is coming up on April 21st-23rd, with high schools from all around the state coming together and competing in different prompt competitions. FBLA members at Erie are working hard and putting in extra time and effort to finalize their presentation and hopefully take home a state title.
“Jackie, Taryn, and I are going to all meet and edit our presentation, make it more professional, just sort of fine tune it a bit, make it read better to a higher quality, just to ensure that we still have an upper hand at state.” Palacios explained.
The successes this team has experienced thus far is an amazing way to start out their initial year as a club, and they only hope to improve and grow as a team as the season comes to an end.
