Words echo through the room: Fifth place goes to…Fourth place goes to…Third place goes to…Second place goes to…With lights blaring on them and the overwhelming feeling of being on stage, sophomores Natalie Percy and Thanmaye Dabbara won first place in the News and Broadcast division of the Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) 2026 State Conference.
Future Business Leaders of America prepares the future generation for starting and running their own businesses. Events like Broadcast Journalism and Public Speaking are just some of the events FBLA helps students train and compete for. FBLA teaches certain skills to be kids’ strong suit, such as confidence.
“You definitely need a lot of confidence. I think it helped me a lot because I feel like before, I wasn’t really good at public speaking,” Percy said.
Percy was first interested in FBLA because she was interested in going into marketing, a key factor of business. She said once she joined she found a true passion for it.
“It’s a nationally recognized club that’s really good for business majors,” Percy said.
Percy and Dabbara’s event was Broadcast Journalism. They had to focus on one event in the community and highlight the event by having a ‘podcast-like’ environment. It includes interviewing strangers, equipment setups like microphones and creating a huge presentation to present to the judges without being able to look at their slides or reading off a note card. Stage presence was another major category the judges grade on. Percy remembers the amount of hours it took to memorize their speech.
“We would stand in front of the mirror and recite our speech tens of thousands of times,” Percy said.
The win was a complete and utter shock to the team. Dabbara and Percy had already made it to the top five. The top five were required to go onto stage for the final placements. Percy remembers the officer just kept counting up from fifth place, until the big moment.
“Whenever we heard our name called for first place, we sprinted across the stage to shake hands with the officer who was presenting the award. We were just in complete shock,” Percy said.
Moreover, Dabbara remembers the moment they got to receive their medal.
“And then we got off the stage, there was a lady handing out medals. She asked us if we were first place and we were like, yeah, we’re first place, we’re first place!” Dabbara said.
Next, Cypress Woods FBLA will represent the state of Texas at Nationals June 28 – July 2. This time, the girls will have to expand their idea for broadcasting journalism for a bigger audience. They plan to highlight an event that will get them to the top at Nationals.
“We are going to do the Bridgeland Nature Fest. It’s a really big event. We want to do something that stands out more. It got us to first, but Nationals is way more competitive,” Dabbara said.
