Forest Park students compete at BPA nationals, Sarder wins desktop publishing title

Crystal Falls has a national champion to celebrate. Forest Park High School student Lily Sarder won first place in Fundamental Desktop Publishing at the 2026 Business Professionals of America National Leadership Conference in Nashville, while classmate Anna Bandola represented the school in Banking and Finance.

The BPA nationals ran May 6-10 in Nashville, Tennessee, and drew roughly 6,000 people to the awards ceremony alone. BPA calls the National Leadership Conference its biggest annual event, with competition, leadership workshops, networking and awards spread across more than 90 events in six assessment areas. Students do not get there easily: BPA requires competitors to advance through regional and state competition before reaching nationals, which makes Sarder’s championship stand out even more.

Bandola competed in Banking and Finance, an entry-level event that tests practical skills such as writing checks, calculating interest and handling customer service tasks tied to bank operations, loans, credit administration and bank services. Sarder’s event, Fundamental Desktop Publishing, asks students to design logos, newsletters and other business materials. Together, the two competitions show how BPA connects classroom work to real-world business skills, from financial literacy to digital communication and design.

The trip was also an on-the-ground lesson in travel, culture and professionalism. Forest Park’s new BPA adviser, Tim Florian, and his wife, Karen, traveled with the students from Crystal Falls to Tennessee. While in Nashville, the group stayed at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center, toured downtown, visited the Grand Ole Opry, explored Broadway and took a dinner cruise aboard the General Jackson River Showboat. BPA also used the conference to elect the 2026-27 national student leadership team, adding another layer of civic and leadership development to the week.

Sarder’s win carried extra weight because she had placed 10th at last year’s conference. The jump from national finalist to champion underscored the kind of persistence and preparation that small-town students can build through career and technical student organizations.

Forest Park’s chapter has already shown it can compete beyond Iron County. In 2025, six Forest Park BPA students advanced to nationals in Orlando under then-adviser Debbie Smithson, who said she had served as BPA adviser for 20 of her 35 years at Forest Park Schools. BPA chapters now reach more than 1,500 schools and more than 50,000 members across the U.S. and other countries, and Michigan BPA says its state leadership conference draws more than 2,000 members from more than 100 schools. For Crystal Falls, Sarder’s national title shows how a local BPA chapter can open a path to business skills, leadership experience and employability that reaches far beyond the Upper Peninsula.