10/22/19


From left, senior Eric Gass,  senior Antonio Gayoso, sophomore Brian Tran, junior Ryan Smith,  senior Ben Nguyen,  graduate Sam Stewart,  graduate Jacqueline Cao and senior Mason Hockensmith hold their awards at the San Antonio competition. (SPECIAL TO SNN)

By ANIYA TRUEBLOOD
SNN Staff Writer

During summer break, a group of Lakewood students took a trip to San Antonio for a Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) competition. For some, it was their first time seeing San Antonio.

Senior Antonio Gayoso placed second in the nation in his competition category - Digital Video Production. “I was really happy with my score, we did a lot better than I thought we would do,” Gayoso said.

Junior Ryan Smith placed seventh in Introduction to Parliamentary Procedure, a category, about rules and customs that are established for how organizations conduct a meeting. “We had to learn about motions and how they rank and what people’s rights are as a member of a meeting and how certain things play out in a meeting,” Smith said.

Smith said for his event he had to answer questions about certain scenarios dealing with parliament and business meeting procedures. Other winners at the national level were: Brian Tran, Ben Nguyen, Sam Stewart, Jacqueline Cao, Eric Gass and Mason Hockensmith. FBLA sponsor Chris Borg said he was very happy with how his students did in the competition.

“I was quite impressed with how they did at nationals. We were not expecting to have eight winners,” Borg said. “It’s pretty awesome to have one or two winners and we have eight. It’s even better.”

The trip wasn’t hard to plan. “We’ve been doing it so long it’s kind of easy to plan and we’re used to it now,” Borg said.

When they weren’t competing, the students and chaperones walked around and enjoyed the city, including the city’s famous River Walk, a network of walkways along the banks of the San Antonio River. “San Antonio was amazing, the River Walk was beautiful and the conference center where we had our event was giant and very professional,” Gayoso said.

In addition to the River Walk, the group also visited places like Dave and Buster’s and saw the different shops. “There were a lot of cool things in San Antonio that I wasn’t expecting,” Smith said, “like tower of the Americas. It’s a really tall tower where you can see out and see the whole city.”