BSC Students Take the Competition by Surprise

Bismarck State College freshmen Graysen Connolly and Cammie Veldkamp brought home some hardware from the Collegiate DECA International Career Development Conference. As first year Collegiate DECA members competing against third- and fourth- year college students – all the way up to Ivy League schools - Connolly and Veldkamp “didn’t want to get their hopes up” about taking home any titles. Hearing their names called as international champions was a moment they’ll never forget.

Connolly and Veldkamp qualified at State DECA to compete in two events at the international competition: “Advertising Campaign” (a prepared event, where they created a 30-page ad campaign for an existing business and developed a 15-minute presentation for the “CEO of the company”) and “Event Planning” (a two-person team case study event, with a hypothetical event scenario and one hour to plan it before presenting to an experienced judge.) They took home the state championship in Advertising Campaign and the state runner-up title in Event Planning, advancing to the international competition in both.

The team along with adviser Associate Professor of Management Kevin Cavanagh travelled to San Francisco, Cal. on April 5-9 to represent North Dakota in the battle for international titles. After doing some tourist things including a visit to Alcatraz and checking out the Golden Gate Bridge and attending some keynote speaker sessions, they competed in the preliminary round for both of their events.

“We felt like Event Planning went great, but the Advertising Campaign was hard to tell. We were so nervous because we had a judge that did a phenomenal job at not giving any hints in their emotions as to if they liked what they were hearing or not,” Connolly said. “Afterwards, Cammie and I weren’t sure what to expect.”

At preliminary awards, Connolly and Veldkamp were called to the stage as international finalists in both events. The top fifteen teams in each event received international finalist medals and advanced to compete one more time in finals.

Competing again in finals, the pressure was on.

“We told each other we’d done what we came to do by taking home some hardware [finalist medals],” Veldkamp said. “But I think we both knew deep down that we had a project very capable of winning it all.”

At final awards, they were called to the stage for the Top 10 in Event Planning.

“We stood up there and watched the top three get their glass and didn’t hear our names called... when we got back to our seats and saw our scores, we’d been one point away from 3rd place and taken 4th overall,” Veldkamp said. “It was hard to stay confident standing up there again as they called third and second place in Ad Campaign. My heart just dropped after they called second place, and it wasn’t us. I thought we hadn’t done it, and then they called first place, and for some reason they were saying our names, and we looked at each other and our jaws just dropped.”

Out of 47 North Dakota DECA members that qualified to compete at internationals, only one other member placed in the top three in their event and only four others placed in the top 10. Connolly and Veldkamp brought home North Dakota’s only international championship this year.

Cammie Veldkamp also took home the national title in this year’s Virtual Case Simulation. Competing against 100+ Collegiate DECA members across the nation over the span of two weeks, she ran the highest valued two-year entrepreneurship simulation and received a $500 prize, the national champion title and a plaque at ICDC.

Although Veldkamp will graduate in a few weeks and Connolly will graduate in December, they hope to keep BSC’s new DECA program alive for the 2025-2026 school year and beyond.

“There’s really no way to describe the impact DECA could have on your life without experiencing it for yourself,” Veldkamp said. “It’s never too late to join!”

Follow along for more BSC DECA updates on their Instagram: @bsc.deca