Riverside, Calif., April, 2000--The La Sierra University Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) team won its Regional Champion trophy Tuesday, April 18, at the SIFE Regional Exposition held in Long Beach.

The Long Beach regional was one of 14 SIFE competitions held around the country and fielded teams from parts of California and Arizona.

Teams were divided into two leagues--four-year colleges and two-year colleges. La Sierra competed against the University of Arizona, Tucson; Woodbury University in Burbank; Vanguard University in Costa Mesa; and Fresno Pacific University. Among the four-year colleges, La Sierra and Arizona were named regional co-champions.

La Sierra SIFE also won the "Success 2000" competition, an award given to only one team per league. This award recognized the team with the best programs for tutoring and mentoring disadvantaged youths or impoverished adults. For its efforts at the regionals, La Sierra SIFE won a total of $2,500, $1,500 for being named regional co-champions and $1,000 for the "Success 2000" award.

The strong performance in Long Beach signaled a return to the winning circle for La Sierra SIFE. Despite a series of unprecedented successes in the last decade - La Sierra was a national champion in SIFE competitions from 1994 to 1997 - the university had not fielded a team at regional competitions for the last two years.

Every member of this year's SIFE team was a first-timer to SIFE competitions and Heather Miller, SIFE faculty fellow, is a rookie-year coach.

"I'm so proud of these students because it's taken so much work for us to get this far," said Miller. "Our students have taken a huge leap of faith to start out as a brand new team and try to meet the reputation that previous La Sierra SIFE teams created."

With a strong list of projects behind them and a sophisticated multimedia presentation in tow, the SIFE team was poised to garner the judges' attention in Long Beach, Miller said. "But now we really have our work cut out for us," she said.

The SIFE International competition will be held May 22 and 23 in Kansas City. This "world series" of SIFE events will feature more than 120 college teams and a much higher level of competition than the regionals.

La Sierra SIFE team members are Ivan Glaze, Leslie Lardizabal, Nevious Osborne, Jeremy Ramos, Ben Ransonet, Luke Robinson, Ari Salgueiro, Felipe Vielmann, Geovanny Vielmann, Natan Vigna, Shannon Wilkins and Jovan Zamorano.

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