JACKSON, Tenn. — April 18, 2005 — The Students in Free Enterprise team at 51社区 captured its 12th consecutive regional championship April 16 at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis.
SIFE will now advance to the national competition May 21 in Kansas City, Mo.
The 36 colleges and universities that competed in the regional competition were divided into six leagues. Union competed against the University of Memphis, Freed-Hardeman University, Southwest Missouri State University, Crichton College and Culver-Stockton College in its league.
In addition to the regional championship, Union鈥檚 SIFE team won three of four special topic competitions. Union won first place in the national personal financial success skills, national business ethics and national free market economics contests.
鈥淲e were expecting to be regional champions again, since we had such great projects this year,鈥� Union SIFE president Stacey Chandler said. 鈥淲e were surprised that we won three out of four special topic awards. We did not expect that.鈥�
SIFE chapters are judged mainly on the projects they complete during the year. The Union SIFE team projects included a Brazilian art auction to raise money for an orphanage in Brazil, a book drive that provided free books to local elementary students and a Junior SIFE program that taught global marketing to local sixth grade students.
鈥淲e did the best we could this year with projects,鈥� Chandler said. 鈥淲hether we were going to win or not we were going to be satisfied because we did the best we could.鈥�
Union鈥檚 SIFE team consists of 22 members. Those team members presenting projects at the competition were Welch Hopkins, Jessica Campbell, Charity Kuni and Sarah Fellows.
For its efforts at the regional competition, the team received $3,000 in prize money.