Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

SAU Students Earn National Awards

The student business organization Phi Beta Lambda at Southern Arkansas University recently brought home 15 national awards from the 2000 Phi Beta Lambda National Leadership Conference held in Long Beach, Calif. The 15 awards were the most won by any chapter in the nation. "We did great. I was really proud of all of our students who participated," said Gerald Plumlee, instructor of computer information systems and chapter co-adviser of PBL at SAU. "These awards say a lot about our chapter and our school."

At the four-day conference, over 1,500 business students from colleges and universities around the nation competed in business-related events. In addition participants attended business workshops, elected national officers and networked with other members and business people from across the United States.

"This was great for our students, because they earned the right to represent Arkansas by winning the state competition," said Plumlee, who attended the conference along with co-adviser Darlene Tickle, instructor of business, and chaperone Pat Gilreath, secretary in the School of Business at SAU. "This was a great opportunity for our students. They had a chance to see and learn a lot, meet other students who are interested in business, and meet employers from all across the country."

In the chapter events PBL team members wrote a report about a project, which was submitted prior to the conference. Teams with the 10 highest scores on the report gave presentations to a panel of judges at the conference about the chapter projects. Rachel Jones, a senior management major from Douglassville, Texas, and Cathy Littlefield, a senior accounting major from Nashville, earned first place for SAU.

The community service project submitted was the mentoring program between SAU PBL and Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) members at SAU and students at Central Elementary School in Magnolia.

SAU's PBL won first place for its annual business report, written by Traci Hughes, a finance graduate from Prescott. Hughes, the former state PBL president, also earned first place for her Arkansas PBL state chapter annual business report.

Hughes also placed third in the nation in the Ms. Future Business Executive, an event involving a written test and an interview with a panel of judges. She was also recognized as Arkansas' Who's Who in PBL.

Joel Parrish, a senior marketing major from Camden, and Kris Laster, a junior marketing major from Atlanta, Texas, presented the team's American Enterprise Project, which placed third at the conference. The project was entitled "Teach a Child About Business," which involved PBL and SIFE members at SAU working with first and second grade students at Victory Christian School in Camden, teaching them about business concepts and how to start their own businesses.

Robert Duncan and Stephen Kelley, both senior accounting majors from Camden, and Jennifer Rogers, a sophomore management major from Taylor, earned third place for the chapter by presenting the Partnership with Business Project. The SAU project was the chapter's visit to Alltel in Little Rock in which members learned about being a successful business leader in a large corporation.

Other SAU business students participating in the conference included Michael Long, a freshman computer information systems major from Magnolia; Jeremy Franks, a freshman management major from Magnolia; Robert Callicott, a management graduate from Prescott; and Alissa Hillhouse, a senior accounting major from Taylor.

Jeremy Carter, a graduate of SAU and former SAU-PBL and Arkansas state president, was recognized as Arkansas PBL business person of the year.

Carter is the owner of Junction City Florist and was recognized for his numerous contributions to Phi Beta Lambda. Carter has supported a number of SAU-PBL projects, including the partnership with business project state competition annually. He has presented workshops and served as a judge at state leadership conferences, and he is a member of the FBLA-PBL professional division.