The 2008 Junior Achievement Business Week may have come to a close last Friday, but one of the students will be enjoying the fruits of her labor for some time to come. Ashlee Ruiz of Pinnacle Charter High School was on the team that took home first place in the third-year student competition. Third-year students enjoyed the special opportunity to work with the organizers of the 2009 SportAccord, a major international sports conference coming to Denver this March, to create a youth engagement plan for the event.

JA Business Week is an annual week-long business and leadership program for high school students, which was held at Johnson & Wales University in Denver on June 8-13, 2008. Nearly two hundred students from throughout the metro Denver area spent the week on campus, where they explored business, entrepreneurship and leadership concepts alongside some of our community's most dynamic and accomplished business leaders. Students were divided into teams, or 'companies,' and given a business project to work on throughout the week. At the end of the week, all student 'companies' presented their business plans and results to a panel of business professionals, and were judged on the creativity and practicality of their ideas.

Company "O" was victorious in the third-year competition. The group created a unique marketing plan to attract youth to the 2009 SportAccord. The plan is called "The Art of Athletics Competition," which invites teams from every Colorado middle and high school to create and submit a piece of art work. The art would then be displayed and judged during the SportAccord conference. The winning art would be announced on the last day of the conference at an awards ceremony, which will be open to the public and will feature professional and amateur athletes.

Congratulations to Ashlee Ruiz and Company "O" on a job well done! For more information about JA Business Week, visit www.jabusinessweek.org or call 303-524-5252.