A Dixon High School economics team will advance to the scholarship round of the JA Titan business competition to be held in Davenport, Iowa, on November 17.  The Dixon High School team of Valbona Bajrami, Michael Ricks, Tanner Meyer-Wright, and Mitch Reuter narrowly defeated the DHS second place team by 2 points.  Chad Weigle from the Edward Jones Investment Company mentored the team.  Dixon High School competed against teams from Mendota and Princeton.

 Junior Achievement hosts eight qualifying rounds throughout Illinois and Iowa.  The eight winning teams from those qualifying rounds will compete for $8,000 in scholarship money.  The winning team will each receive $1,000, the second place team $750 each, and the third place team will earn $250 each.

 Dixon High School was able to bring four teams to the qualifying round and had a first, second, fourth and fifth place finish.  Students that competed were:  Austin Dillon, Michael Rivera, Abbey Dempsey, Nicole Bujagsky, Aazam Kahn, Zach Payne, Scott Goad, Ben Walter, Charles Moore, Nora Bratt, Vincent Messina, and Chelsea Smith.  Business mentors that helped the DHS teams were Clive Thompson from UPM Raflatac, Aaron Fox from KSB Hospital, Jason Floyd from Wal-Mart Distribution Center, and Chad Weigle from Edward Jones.

 Thank you to the corporate sponsors of UPM Raflatac, KSB Hospital, and Wal-Mart Distribution Center for donations to help the event occur, and thanks to McDonalds for donating 50 lunches to the competition.

 The students learned a lot from their business mentors throughout the simulation.  We are grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from such talented business individuals.