Top honors captured in recent competition
By:Emily Craighead
Sibling rivalry yielded a fine dividend for Manville High School’s Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) at the Central Region conference Jan. 4, when brothers Michael and Lukas Bogdanowicz captured two first-place awards at the regional competition.
Michael, a junior, won first place in Visual Basic Programming, while sophomore Lukas won first place in the Introduction to Business category.
"If he got first and I got anything lower, I would never live it down," Lukas said, grinning.
Whatever their motivation for working hard, FBLA team members impressed club President Rebecca Rodriguez with their performances.
"This year we had a great group of kids and we accomplished even more than last year," Rebecca said.
The team brought home eight individual awards last year and 10 this year. Those 10 winners will compete in their category at the statewide conference in March.
Manville had a strong showing in word processing, with senior Dana Delesky taking fourth place in Word Processing II, and sophomore Ashley Curley taking seventh place in Word Processing I. In this discipline, students have 45 minutes to complete seven projects, including typing and formatting a resume, a letter, and using word processing functions like mail merge. Ashley completed those tasks in spite of losing her glasses shortly before the competition and having to lean in close to see the computer screen.
Word processing is one category where experience pays off, according to advisor Nancy Ostaszewski.
"You have to have speed and accuracy, but there’s also a format guide," she said. "The first couple of years I didn’t know that and these advisors are so competitive, they won’t always tell you."
Many of those teams have had reason to try to maintain an edge they over up-and-coming Manville, as the team has built its reputation for professionalism and success.
"People (at the competition) knew who we were," Rebecca said. "There were over 1,000 competitors there, and it says a lot about Manville that they knew who we were."
Manville students did well even in areas not specifically covered in the high school curriculum.
One such subject was C++ programming, in which senior Mike Andreyko placed third and senior Mike Phuanthong placed seventh. Another was introduction to (FBLA) parliamentary procedures, where sophomore Melissa Roskanski placed seventh.
Junior Renee Oscilowski placed fourth in business law, freshman Mallory Darida placed fourth in introduction to business communications, and sophomore Kyle Kelman placed fifth in networking concepts.
In these disciplines, students took 100 question multiple choice tests.
Two FBLA seniors are competing for the honor of being named Mr. and Mrs. Future Business Leader. Michael Chabra and Nelly Levitsky were nominated to compete based on their service to the organization, their ability and years in FBLA. They are competing against students from all four regions for the top honor.
The team also received a certificate of excellence for membership expansion. The team grew from 96 to 106 members this year, an increase Ms. Ostaszewski attributes in part to Rebecca’s recruiting efforts. "(Rebecca) was really instrumental in getting kids to join, especially freshmen," she said.
And then there are other incentives to stick around.
"Once you’ve won something you want to come back," Ms. Ostaszewski said.
All the students who placed at regionals will come back for the FBLA State Leadership Conference at the Raritan Conference Center in Edison March 16 and 17.

