Anhkhoa Le came for the free pizza but stayed for the community. 

He joined Skyline High School’s Future Business Leaders of America program as a freshman four years ago and now serves as the club’s president. 

He and members of the Skyline FBLA program spent three days of intense competition at the state FBLA conference. Of the 75 teams that competed for Skyline, 30 placed high enough to compete in California at the national FBLA competition. 

“It was definitely exhausting for a lot of people, but it paid off in the end,” Anhkhoa said. “This is the most amount of teams Skyline has ever had that qualified for the national event and placed so highly.”

Skyline received several first-place awards during the state event. Jonathan Chen won for Agribusiness; Anhkhoa, Kyle Linnhan and Daniel Luo took the top spot in Banking amd Financial Systems; Jonah Fearnley and Ivy Zhao topped the Data Analysis category; Kaitlyn Cao, Sophia Cheng and Zibo Wang earned first for Hospitality and Event Management; Melanie Wang won Introduction to Business Communication; Sreeram Patcha took first for Introduction to Financial Math; Daniel won Introduction to Parliamentary Procedure; Mindy Phan topped the Public Speaking category; Monika Cinbis took first for Supply Chain Management and Anhkhoa won Who’s Who in FBLA.

Anhkhoa (17) first joined FBLA because they offered free pizza during the meetings. He stuck around after finding like-minded people who pushed him to go outside his comfort zone and try new things. 

“It got me involved and super interested in the club,” he said. “It was a third space for me because in life there’s school and home or work, but FBLA let me stay and find my community.”

Anhkoa served as the president of the state chapter this year. After he graduates this spring, he plans to attend a four-year university where he can study economic policy. 

Sophia (17) serves as vice president for Skyline’s FBLA chapter and also serves as a state officer. She said the club has experienced significant growth over the last few years with previous members starting their own businesses or working with companies like Apple and Meta. 

“FBLA is a community and we have a really great community,” Sophia said. “Everyone’s super supportive and it’s super fun to go to competitions together. It definitely gives you a lot of skills you wouldn’t get otherwise. It gives you a lot of confidence in communication and public speaking skills and I think that appeals a lot to students.”

During the state conference, Skyline FBLA members were elected to serve as two of eight statewide officials for the upcoming year. Jonathan Chen and Zibo Wang are both aspiring leaders who are excited to serve the thousands of FBLA students in the state.

“FBLA is an experience all high school students have to try,” Jonathan said. “To me, FBLA has brought me leadership, networking skills and opportunities for success that have shaped me into the character I am today.”

The Skyline FBLA teams will compete at the FBLA National Leadership Conference in Anaheim, Calif., June 29-July 2. For more information, visit FLBA.org or UtahFLBA.org. 

“Every year, with Skyline FBLA, we get bigger and we do better,” Anhkhoa said. “I think we’ve reached the cap and then the next year it proves me wrong and we somehow grow even bigger and do even better.” λ