Alec Boyajian becomes Pascack Hills’ first-ever NJ DECA President

Maeve Rossig, Arts & Entertainment Editor|March 10, 2020

Alec Boyajian made school history this past week by becoming the first-ever DECA New Jersey State President from Pascack Hills. Boyajian left several days earlier than the rest of the club to begin his campaign at the High School State Career Development Conference in Atlantic City, NJ last week. 

“The preparation was pretty hard; there were a lot of scrapped ideas and setbacks, but ultimately the last few weeks before states were when it all came together,” Boyajian said. “The campaign was centered around two themes: the school’s mascot and this year’s national location, Nashville. That led me to a cowboy theme.”

Following the rigorous application and campaigning process, Voting ultimately took place on Tuesday, March 3, on the second day of the convention. He prepped by running a campaign booth with the help of his peers to gain attention from the other students attending. 

“It was a lot of fun and a lot of craziness. We were able to meet a ton of kids from NJ DECA, and it gave us experience in mock government, being able to campaign for someone. We were all competing but we were also all trying to be at the booth to help him campaign, so we were crazy busy trying to get everything in,” junior and fellow DECA member Larissa Aquaviva said. 

Boyajian found out the results for his election on Wednesday before the club left to return to Hills. 

“We were waiting for so long and once we saw ‘Alec Boyajian’ on the screen we were all jumping up and down and screaming. It was so exciting. We knew beforehand that if he won he got to bang this gavel, so watching him do that legitimized it,” Junior Liz Mashini explained.

The moment was captured in a video, posted on @phhs_principal on Instagram. Though the video showed the excitement of both Alec Boyajian and DECA supervisor, Ms. Gamgort, it didn’t quite express how they truly felt in the moment.

“It was super nerve-wracking, knowing how hard he worked and how bad he wanted it, so I was really hoping for the best. After hearing his name, I was super relieved, and everyone was so excited for him. It was a surreal moment; the whole chapter surrounded him after coming off of the stage, congratulating him.” Ms. Gamgort explained.

“My first thought was, shoot, I have to get up there because the stage director said whoever won needed to run-up to the stage to close the session. My second thought was this is unbelievable. I was very anxious prior to the announcement.” Boyajian added.

Alec Boyajian had stiff competition, as he ran against the current Northern Region Vice President from Indian Hills who won when she was a sophomore and now ran to be state president as a junior. He knew it would be a challenge to run against a previous state officer, which pushed him to work harder on his campaign.

“My goals are to be more connected with every chapter. Every year this is a disconnect between smaller chapters like us to state officers, but my main goal is to close that gap with every chapter.” Boyajian said.

His fellow DECA-members and supervisors are equally excited for his success, as Alec Boyajian is the first Pascack Hills student to ever become a state officer. As if this accomplishment wasn’t big enough for Boyajian, he will also be continuing on to DECA Nationals.