Wareham junior Paige Fehskens is truly in a class of her own.

Of the 24 Wareham High School Distributive Education Clubs of America students that traveled to this year's international competition, only Fehskens earned the title of world class. She was one of only 20 students in her category to achieve that honor.

“I thought I did well, but I did not think I was good enough to place in the top 20,” she said. “I may have only been competing against 200 in my category, but they were the 200 best in the world.”

The 200 students in Fehskens category, Retail Management, were broken up into ten sections. Only the top two in each 20-person section could qualify as world class.

The international DECA competition took place in Orlando, Florida, at the end of April. Wareham DECA advisor Monice Maurice said more than 11,000 competitive students and 3,000 leadership academy students from around the world attended the meet. The competitive students actively competed in specific categories of the DECA program, while the leadership academy students participated in 16 hours of intensive leadership training. There are 280,000 student DECA students worldwide, according to Maurice.

The 24 students from Wareham represented a high water mark for the program. Fehskens said joining the DECA program made her into a much more confident person all around.

“I have an anxiety disorder, and it’s helped me work through that,” Fehskens said. “I used to be afraid of speaking in front of people. It’s just made all my fears go away.”

Another Wareham student, senior Cory Harunkiewicz, 17, also made a splash at the international competition. A member of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, Harunkiewicz received a scholarship from the United States Army to attend Norwich University, a military academy. According to Maurice, of the five people to receive scholarships, Harunkiewicz’s was the largest.

“Other students were walking out with something like $17,000, $11,000 checks,” Maurice said. “Cory walked out with a $136,000 check strictly for academics, not including the rest for room and board.”

Harunkiewicz said the Army, an affiliate of national DECA, awarded him the scholarship for overall high school achievement, and that he wants to attend Norwich University to become an officer.

Harunkiewicz also said that joining DECA was the best decision he has ever made, in terms of high school clubs, and said he met two other DECA student with whom he connected, during the international competition.

“There are just so many tips and tricks, and so much knowledge,” Harunkiewicz said of his fellow DECA competitors. “You really get to learn those, and … connect with kids you wouldn’t meet elsewhere. They are really intelligent kids.”