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From Staff Reports

AMERICUS – Three members of the South Georgia Technical College (SGTC) Phi Beta Lambda (PBL) chapter participated in the virtual Georgia PBL State Leadership Conference recently and qualified to compete in the online national Phi Beta Lambda conference in June. The SGTC Americus chapter received over twenty awards and fulfilled the requirements for the national “Outstanding Chapter” award.

The three SGTC Americus Phi Beta Lambda students to qualify for the online national competition included Ashley Halstead, an Early Childhood Care and Education student from Ellaville; Heather Hinton, a Computer Information Systems student from Dawson; and Kenyatta Slaughter, a Business Technology student from Buena Vista. Each of these three students met state PBL qualification criterion to represent the state of Georgia and the college for all eight of their competitive events at the virtual national PBL conference Wednesday through Friday, June 24-26.

Slaughter was selected to be a 2020-2021 Georgia PBL State Officer and is a Georgia PBL Foundation Scholarship winner. She took first place in the Future Business Educator and Statistical Analysis competitions and was second in the local chapter Annual Business Report event. Slaughter also earned the Career Membership and Achievement Program Executive and Director Level awards.

Halstead received a second place award in three different competitions. She was second in the Community Service Project, second in Emerging Business Issues event and second in the Forensic Accounting competition. Halstead is also a Who’s Who member in the Georgia PBL and earned the Career Membership and Achievement Program’s recognition for President Level, Executive Level, and Director Level.

Hinton was the third member of the SGTC Americus group to qualify for nationals. She finished second in Networking Concepts and took third place in Cyber Security.

The SGTC Americus PBL organization received the Outstanding Chapter distinction as well as the Platinum Chapter Award of Merit. The organization also earned first place in both the March of Dimes and FBLA Interactions competition and took second place in the Georgia PBL Foundation event.

The Future Business Leaders of America – Phi Beta Lambda, Inc. (FBLA-PBL) is the largest career student business organization in the world. Each year, FBLA-PBL helps over 230,000 members prepare for careers in business. SGTC students competed against the top students from two and four year colleges and universities at the Georgia virtual conference.

The purpose of FBLA-PBL is to inspire and prepare students to become community-minded business leaders in a global society through relevant career preparation and leadership experiences.

South Georgia Technical College Academic Dean Dr. Andrea Oates and SGTC Business Technology Instructor Donna Lawrence are the advisors for this organization locally and Donna Lawrence also served on the state PBL executive committee.