Local Student earns DECA Emerging Leader Honor Award

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 12, 2026

Local student earns DECA Emerging Leader Honor Award

RICHARDSON, Texas – Kirah Geffert, a senior at Richardson High School in RICHARDSON, Texas, is the recipient of the 2026 DECA Emerging Leader Honor Award.

Kirah Geffert has demonstrated exceptional dedication to academics, leadership, and community service throughout her high school career. Maintaining a strong 3.6 GPA on a 4.0 scale, Kirah has balanced academic success with extensive extracurricular involvement. She has served as a DECA officer for the past four years and currently holds the position of Chapter President, showcasing her leadership, professionalism, and commitment to student organizations. Kirah is also a four-time International Career Development Conference (ICDC) qualifier through the Perch School-Based Enterprise (SBE) program and a four-time Texas DECA State qualifier, reflecting her excellence in business, marketing, and entrepreneurship competitions. Beyond academics and leadership, she has consistently given back to her community by participating in Feed My Starving Children all four years of high school, demonstrating compassion, service, and a desire to make a positive impact on others.

This award recognizes students studying marketing, finance, hospitality and management for being academically prepared, community oriented, professionally responsible and experienced leaders through participation in DECA. The award recipient must be a DECA member in his or her senior year of high school with a cumulative grade point average of 3.2 or better for each of the high school semesters.

“As our DECA Chapter President and a four-time ICDC qualifier, Kirah has proven herself to be a leader in our business and entrepreneurship programs at RHS.

However, what truly distinguishes Kirah is her heart for service. Her four-year dedication to Feed My Starving Children speaks volumes about her character, proving that she is as community oriented as she is professionally driven.

Kirah is a ‘quadruple threat’ of talent: academically prepared, community-focused, professionally responsible, and an experienced leader. She represents the very best of our student body, and I have no doubt she will continue to lead with excellence and compassion in all her future endeavors.”

— Dr. Bill Parker, Magnet Principal, RHS

The DECA chapter advisor at Richardson High School is Lee Geffert. Kirah Geffert is the daughter of Lee and Tiffany Geffert.

About DECA Inc.
DECA is a career and technical student organization that prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs with a career interest in marketing, finance, hospitality, and management. DECA enhances the preparation for college and careers by providing co-curricular programs that integrate into classroom instruction, apply learning, connect to business and promote competition. DECA student members leverage their DECA experience to become academically prepared, community oriented, professionally responsible, experienced leaders. DECA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with over 287,000 members in more than 4,000 high school and college chapters in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and Germany.

For more information about DECA, visit www.deca.org.

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