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Area students visit SIC for business skills competition

<div><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">HARRISBURG</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">&#160;&#8211; Gallatin County High School has been named the high overall winner for the high school business skills competition held late last month&#160;at Southeastern Illinois College.</span></span></div>

<div><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">The event, held Feb. 23, included six categories for individual students to compete with their peers from other SIC district high schools. Those schools competing this year included Carmi-White County, Eldorado, Galatia, Gallatin County, Hardin County, Harrisburg and Pope County.</span></span></div>

<div><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Several of the events in this competition involve an objective exam while others have a hands-on component.&#160; The top two scorers from each event are recognized at the awards ceremony.&#160;Each high school can enter up to two students per event and each school's individual competition scores are totaled to find out the school with the most points.&#160;</span></span></div>

<div><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">"The 2017 Business Skills Competition was another success," said Kelsie Bond-Rodman, SIC Business Instructor. "It is great for the students to visit SIC and interact with potential instructors, students and staff. I always enjoy meeting and talking to future SIC students, and we appreciate all of the high schools that attended this year."</span></span></div>

<div><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">In the accounting category, the 100-question test covers such topics as balance sheets, income statements, work sheets, adjusting and closing entries, account balances, notes receivable and petty cash. Students are not allowed to use calculators or cell phones during the test.&#160;&#160;</span></span></div>

<div><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Kelsi May of Gallatin County won first in accounting and Alexa Naas of Gallatin County took second.</span></span></div>

<div><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">The general business category covers banking, budgeting, careers, economic systems, insurance, marketing and other business information. Chance Hamblin of Carmi-White County earned first place in general business, while Chloe Bosaw of Gallatin County took second.</span></span></div>

<div><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">A new category, business presentation, was introduced this year.&#160;</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">In this category, a two-student team given a topic and they were to use presentation software to deliver a six-minute presentation, and were required to wear business casual attire.&#160;</span></span></div>

<div><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">This year's topic was identity theft, and the teams were judged by Cameron Newbold, financial advisor with Edward Jones; Meghan Densch, treasury management coordinator with Banterra Bank; and Kim Barr, vice president of human resources with Legence Bank.&#160;</span></span></div>

<div><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Brody Oxford and Ali Hanson of Hardin County won first place in business presentation. Second place went to Kallie and Abbie Keasler of Gallatin County.</span></span></div>

<div><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Excel tests student knowledge on basic concepts in Excel, formatting workbook test and data, and calculating data with formulas and functions. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">David Matthews of Gallatin County took first in Excel and Kelsi Watson of Galatia earned second.</span></span></div>

<div><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">In information technology, participants must reassemble a computer, determine basic networking properties, and complete a test. Taking first in information technology was Ethan Reed of Harrisburg. Michael Jaster of Harrisburg earned second in this category.</span></span></div>

<div><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Finally, the web design category required students to modify a web page working with HTML code. Austin Galloway of Eldorado won first place in web design, and Konner Gross of Gallatin County took second.</span></span></div>

<div><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Caleigh Bruce, Chief Compliance Officer and Director of Human Resources at Ferrell Hospital in Eldorado, as well as a proud SIC alumna was this year's guest speaker. Students also heard from Maggie Calcaterra, SIC's transfer academic advisor.</span></span></div>

<div><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">The purpose of the event is not only to encourage and enhance the study of business knowledge and skills at an early age, but to familiarize area high school students with the available business and computer information technology programs at SIC.&#160;</span></span></div>

<div><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;">Southeastern has traditional and online business degree programs.&#160; To learn more, contact an SIC recruiter at 618-252-5400, ext. 2245 or 2325.</span></span></div>