On April 12, two teams from the Millionaire’s Club at Mt. Hebron joined accounting teacher Ms. Bernadette Bechta and marketing teacher Ms. Sandy Harrington at the personal finance challenge located at the Radisson Hotel in Lutherville-Timonium, MD.

The Maryland Personal Finance Challenge is an opportunity for high school students to demonstrate their personal finance knowledge on topics such as spending, credit, savings, investing, income and money management. Competition was tough since 26 teams from across the state competed in the challenge. In the first part of the competition, each member of a team took three quizzes, each being 15 minutes long. The two teams with the highest combined score went on to compete in a final quiz bowl.

This is only the second year of the Millionaire’s Club and the first time they participated in the Personal Finance Challenge. One of the teams from Mt. Hebron finished in second place in the challenge, losing in the quiz bowl to ARL. Each member from this team was awarded $250. The members from this team included seniors Praneeth Chandu, Joey Petti and Abhishek Velayudham, and sophomore Matt Michaels.

The other team from Mt. Hebron finished in sixth place at the competition, and each of their team members received $50 dollars as their reward. The members from this team included seniors Greg Bisant and Justin Wright, junior Luke DeCray, and sophomore Hersh Shah. Ms. Bechta also received $250 for her highest placed team.

“They asked us questions about a variety of topics including money management, stocks and retirement planning,” said Bisant.

Ms. Bechta’s accounting class and Ms. Harrington’s marketing class get students ready for college business classes and the real world. The teams that represented Mt. Hebron at the competition proved that our school has one of the best finance education programs in the state.

Ms. Bechta also gave much of the credit to her students’ great determination.

“Our success at the competition shows that the students are self-motivated to learn about these topics since Millionaire’s Club is an extracurricular activity,” she said. “I often played the role of a facilitator by providing the members of the Millionaire’s Club with sources to learn about these topics.”

“Praneeth Chandu is the president of the Millionaire’s Club and led his team to the Championship round,” Ms. Bechta continued. “I was very impressed with Matt Michaels and Luke Decray for performing well on the topics of credit, saving and money management.”

Senior Abhishek Velayudham was part of the team that finished in second place at the competition. He really enjoyed being able to see how his group would compare to other competitors around the state and was very proud of how they did.

“I’m going to invest it, of course,” Velayudham said when asked what he will do with his winnings.

The Millionaire’s Club brought well-earned recognition and pride to Mt. Hebron because of their determined members and dedicated sponsors.