In school, Junior Achievement can be a day dreaded by many students, forced to participate in group activities and challenges they do not want to be in. For others though, JA day can be an opportunity to make some extra cash.
In Steve Blankenship’s LHS Economics class, a group of three students from one class battled their way through a statewide economic competition. They not only placed third, but also won a cash prize. LHS junior Steven Stevens, junior David Mickelson and junior Carter Bauman competed against other teams to come out on top.

“[The competition] was a JA Titan, so basically it was a competition where we worked as companies to try to make the most profit. We investigated research and development, charitable giving and marketing along with price,” said Mickelson. “We then looked at how much money we had in the bank in order to be the most productive and make the most money.”

First, the class split up into teams based on where their seating arrangements. Groups then came up with a game plan to take on their other classmates.

“We competed against our class first, and then we went on to a preliminary competition,” said Mickelson. “From there we went to the final round where we got third.
[For winning third] we each got 100 dollars to keep for ourselves.”

According to Resa Kirchhevel, the Senior Education Director of Junior Achievement, this is the first year any students from LHS have won a cash prize. This year’s team has set high expectations and high hopes for next years JA Titan competition.