Nine members of Pleasant Valley High School’s Future Business Leaders of America chapter have qualified to go to the National Leadership Conference in Orlando, Florida from June 29 to July 2.

In all, PV-FBLA had 23 members finish in the Top 10.

“These are stellar results. The kids did exceptionally well,” said Donna Hopely, the adviser for PV-FBLA.

Of those going to nationals, five of them won first place in their category. And one of them, Katelyn Honadel, has claimed the state champion title twice. Honadel is a senior and won first place in Client Services.

“Katelyn’s achievement as a state champion didn’t come without a challenge. The case study was daunting but in true Katelyn style, she gave 110% to achieve first place state champion for a second time,” Hopely said.

The four other first place winners are Michaela Clement St. Louis and Anayah Accilien as a team in Social Media Strategy, and Lillian Erhardt and Briana Palmieri as a team in Community Service Project.

Erhardt and Palmieri created a mental health program called Mindset for Motivation to inspire, motivate and promote mental wellness in students and athletes.

“The judges loved it,” Hopely said.

Two of the state champions, Erhardt and Accilien, will be competing in two categories at nationals.

“That’s no easy feat,” Hopely said.

The girls will compete in the category they won first place in, as well as categories they won as teammates with other FBLA members. Erhardt and Ashley Palmieri won third place as a team in the Business Plan category. And Accilien won third place as a team with Sarah McGraw and Ashley Palmieri in Partnership with a Business.

The other members who qualified to go to the National Leadership Conference are:

• Aaron Bien, second place, Public Policy Advocacy, and;

• Clark Po, third place, Public Policy Advocacy.

“Together they accomplished an amazing finish to place third,” Hopely said.

The members who placed in the Top 10 at the State Leadership Conference are:

• Fifth place - Mira Giunta, Journalism and for Local Chapter Annual Business Report team with Noah Dolan; and May Maciejewski, Agribusiness;

• Sixth place - Patrick Weiss, Entrepreneurship;

• Seventh place - Briana Palmieri, Jacob Chechel and Noah Dolan, Financial Business Plan; Mira Giunta, Journalism; and Michael Pomilio, Aidan Pintabone and Patrick Brennan, International Business, and;

• Tenth place - Jason Kays, Agribusiness.