March 31, 2020
With hard work and dedication come great rewards, and Mayville State junior Abby Kohls, Mayville, N.D., has proven just how working hard to make a difference truly pays off. Recently, Kohls made Mayville State history by becoming the first Mayville State student to be elected to the position of North Dakota’s state Collegiate DECA president. Abby is studying business with specialties in marketing and management.
Both of Abby’s parents, Jennifer (Newman) and Brent Kohls, are proud alumni of Mayville State, and they strongly encouraged their daughter to attend MSU as well. Kohls explained that her parents urged her to enroll at Mayville State because they knew that with her personality and MSU’s small class sizes, she would thrive.
Kohls became a member of Collegiate DECA after attending a meeting so she could earn class points. At that meeting, she decided that she loved the organization and wanted to get involved.
Abby explained that joining Collegiate DECA helped her to become more involved in her college experience and allowed her to come out of her shell. She was able to create new connections with not only other Mayville State students, but also with students from all over the world. By getting to know many individuals from other states, she has been able to grow her network, and since joining Collegiate DECA, networking has quickly become Kohls’ favorite activity within the organization.
Kohls ran for the state Collegiate DECA office because she wanted to make a difference. She stated, “I wanted to step up my own leadership, and I believed that I could bring new ideas and input to DECA by offering a new perspective.”
Being elected to the office meant that Abby was able to bring a whole new level of leadership into her own chapter by growing as a leader herself.
In the Mayville State Collegiate DECA chapter, Kohls is the Vice President of Public Relations. She believes that this experience at the local level will help her as the state president. She has been able to use social media to grow MSU’s chapter to the biggest it has ever been. She plans to take this knowledge to the state level and increase Collegiate DECA’s positive social media presence in the hopes of growing membership statewide.
As state president, Abby wants to let other college students know that Collegiate DECA is not just for business majors. The organization offers “great leadership and community service opportunities, the ability to network, public speaking practice, and the chance to get involved on campus.”
Collegiate DECA can truly help students from all majors become better individuals and will provide great experiences that will help lead students into the future.