Ridgeview High School’s Virtual Enterprise class was the first school in Kern County’s history as well as Ridgeviews history to win first and second in state. 

Gurtaj Pannu is a senior here at Ridgeview High School and is one of five members in the “Toys N’ Tails” team that won second place this year. When asked how Pannu felt after winning and making Kern County history he states, “ It’s crazy that we made history, our school has always been known to not be good at Virtual Enterprise. We’ve been the laughing stock, so making history for the first year and truly competing is amazing”. 

While moving onto the next step in winning, When asked Pannu what he looks forward to he says “I’m excited for the future of Virtual enterprise, the continued classmen making the program get better and better”.   

Pannu says Toys N’ Tails consists of “ an all in one dog boutique where we offer services; Dog grooming dog daycare. Our products are primarily eco-friendly dog products such as eco-friendly collars, leashes and our foods are organically sourced and USDA approved”. 

Jade Vela is also a senior here at Ridgeview high school and is one of six members in the “Natures Canvas” team that won first place this year. Vela has several emotions when it comes to making state she says, “ For me it was a really surreal experience, we came into this not really thinking New York was something that we could do, and for us to go to New York and them become state champs and it wasn’t even just us we had our other team right there with us taking second as we took first it was crazy to us”. 

As this is Vela’s first year with Virtual Enterprise when asked what motivated her she states, “Honestly it was my team, I love my team so much, there was times were it definitely got rough it was a lot of hard work and it was my team,  and Mr. Garcia the whole time I felt like I couldn’t do something. It was my team and him that said “we can do it and we can pull through it and we did”.   As this team took first place Vela, says Nature’s Canvas is “ an eco-friendly art supply line where we sell things such as bamboo pencils, canvases, stone paper sketch books, and milk paints”.  

Miguel Garcia Virtual Enterprise teacher put in many Hours and hard work for him and his students to make it this far. When asked how he felt Garcia said, “I’m so incredibly proud of our students for making history by hitting 1-2 in the state championship rankings. They’ve absolutely shocked the world, the types of kids we have here at Ridgeview are resilient, tenacious, and will never back down from anything, that is why they are champions”. 

Thus leads to the question of what happens next? Garcia says, “Now that the students have won the state championship, we will go compete for the national title in New york city. It will be a three-round competition with each state sending their top teams to compete against the countries best. When teams make it past the first round, they will be in the semi-finals, and then finally the championship rounds”. 

Lastly when asked what he looks forward most in the future “ Truly, truly i say to you that i’m just soaking it all in and enjoying the time i have left with this year’s kids. Of course, we want to win, but 5-10 years from now, what we will all remember is not the trophies we won but rather the memories we’ve made with one another. I’m looking forward to making many more lifelong memories with our amazing teams”.