Three Lake Leelanau St. Mary high school students who participated in a state Business Professionals of America (PBA) competition last month in Grand Rapids will travel to New York City for a national competition, May 9-13.

Seniors Colin Korson and Kelly Pendergast, and freshman Saralyn MacKinnon were among the 32 students who went to the BPA State Leadership conference March 23-25 to compete against students from more than 100 schools from throughout Michigan.

Students who placed at the state competition were:

Seniors: Colin Korson, fourth place, advanced accounting and sixth place, payroll accounting; Kelly Pendergast, first place entrepreneurship.
Juniors: Kaitlynn Cassem, Adam Furore, Ryan Korson and David O’Connor, all fifth place, web application team.
Sophomore: Bradi Pasch, seventh place, administrative support research project – individual.
Freshmen: Emily Boss, seventh place, presentation management – individual; Saralyn MacKinnon, seventh place, integrated office applications.

The advisor of the St. Mary School team is MaryAnn Korson. The school has been represented at the national level all eight years of Korson’s leadership in the program.