Nashville, Tenn. is one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations–a place well-suited for close to 8,000 future business leaders to be Simply The Best!

Future Business Leaders of America-Phi Beta Lambda (FBLA-PBL), the largest and oldest student business organization, had their National Leadership Conference at the Nashville Convention Center, Wednesday-Saturday, July 14-17. Conference participants from around the country were in attendance for this amazing conference and the FBLA-PBL Institute for Leaders.
Twelve students from Johnson-Brock attended the conference and competed in various events, attended workshops, presentations, and the opening and closing sessions. Keynote speaker Robin Crow challenged the students to work hard and not give up on their dreams. He is an author, entrepreneur, business owner and one of the most innovative guitarists in the world. His recording company, Dark Horse Recording, is home to Faith Hill, Neil Diamond, Michael W. Smith, Tim McGraw and Alison Krauss, just to name a few.  
The nearly 8,000 students competed as individuals, state teams and local chapters in nearly 60 different events representing a wide range of activities in the business and leadership development focus of FBLA-PBL. The winners of these highly competitive and prestigious awards were selected from among FBLA-PBL’s membership of more than 250,000 students and represent some of the best and brightest of today’s youth.
Chapter Receives Honor
The Johnson-Brock Chapter received recognition as a Gold Seal chapter and an Outstanding National chapter. To receive this honor, the local chapter’s program of work for the year included various activities including business partnership, community service and professional development.
The highlight of the conference was the FBLA Awards of Excellence closing session July 17. The competition was fierce with most of the 50 states represented as well as Ontario, Canada; The Bahamas; Bermuda; Puerto Rico; the Virgin Islands and Samoa.  Each state could send three representatives in testing events and two in performance events.

Laura Ruskamp received third place in the nation for her Electronic Career Portfolio.    The online portfolio she developed included an application letter, resume, letters of recommendations and highlights of her work experience, many activities and accomplishments.
Others Competing
Other students competing in the conference were: Kayla Alberts, Amanda Teten and Tessa Wellsandt in Business Presentation; Shannon Dierking in Public Speaking I; Amanda Dunekacke in Marketing; Kay Fischer and Caleb Mayfield in Emerging Business Issues; Adam Gilbert in Cyber Security; Jessica Grable in Business Communications; Curtis Karel in Introduction to Technology Concepts, and Stephanie Teten in FBLA Principles and Procedures.  It was a tremendous accomplishment and a great honor for these students to qualify to represent Nebraska at this national conference.  Also traveling with the group was Johnson-Brock adviser Sylvia Smith, Auburn adviser Teresa Hahn, and Auburn students Nathan Allgood and Garrett Schwindt.  Judy Ruskamp, Christine Ruskamp, Loyal Rippe and Beth Rippe joined the group in Tennessee.