By Mary Ellen Zangara, Special Writer
Manville High School Future Business Leaders of America club members came home winners from the state leadership conference, held Sunday and Monday at the Raritan Expo Center in Edison.
MHS Chapter 3985 was represented by 37 members competing in various categories, taking first place honors in the Central Division Chapter Membership. The club has received the FBLA Gold Seal Chapter and Gold Key Chapter designations in recognition of its success.
”We won the business financial this year with a new project for that,” club adviser Nancy Ostaszewski said. “The fact that we never placed in these categories before puts us in a new category to keep striving to win some other categories next year.”
This was the first year that they also won the Web site development.
Other winners included second-place award in the “Job Description Manual” competition for Angelika Lazur, third place in the “American Enterprise Project” for Slywia Pupek, Angelika Lazur took fourth place in the “Ms. Future Business Leader 2009,” and Scott Alpizar and Doug Bradley received fourth place for their Web site design for the club site, Mhsfbla.org.
Fifth place winners for Business Financial Plan were Joe Burnett, Travis Williams and Bill Mazzucca; Amy Evanylo and Erin Lipot took fifth place for their Scrapbook MHS Chapter; and fifth place awards also went to Scott Alpizar and Doug Bradley for their Web site Development, and Pawel Maziarz for his Career Portfolio.
Pawel also placed seventh in the “Mr. Future Business Leader 2009” competition and was a 2009 Gold Member. Angelika Lazur was also a 2009 Gold Officer and a “Who’s Who in FBLA.”
Sandy Rock was named a “Gold Member”; Courtney Daruk was a “Silver Member” with Brittany Hando a “Bronze Member.” The “Public Relations Award” went to Chapter 3985 with Angelika Lazur.
Andrew Zangara was named the New Jersey FBLA “Business Person of the Year” for 2009, after being nominated by the Manville FBLA chapter. Ms. Ostaszewski explained that each chapter may nominate someone from their community, who their chapter believes has contributed to the nine goals of the FBLA.
The committee selects only six recipients from the state each year who qualified and meet this criteria. Each nominee must have supported their local chapters for several years and understand the importance of this chapter within the community.
”Our officers as well as myself both felt Mr. Zangara and the Moose supported us financially and believe in our mission,” she said. “I wrote a three page biography about Mr. Zangara and his contributions to the MHS Chapter and learned that he was selected.”
Ms. Ostaszewski wrote in her nomination of Mr. Zangara of his efforts over the past five years to help them receive financial support for the FBLA officers and members to attend the FBLA conferences.
”He has set up and advised them on several of the business visitations,” she wrote. “Mr. Zangara has reinforced the goals of the FBLA, and has made our organization a priority here at Manville.
The state competition proved to be a successful one for MHS.
”This is the first year that we had two students place in the top 10 for Mr. and Mrs. Future Business Leader. This is also the first year we won first place honors for 50 clubs in the Central Division. We also had for the third year in a row a ‘Business Person of the Year’ which was Mr. Zangara. There are only six people chosen from the state of New Jersey and that was a nice honor. The kids overall did an outstanding job,” said Ms. Ostaszewski.
