Taylor Grimminger, Texans Credit Union Student Employee and senior at Liberty High School, recently won top honors at the Texas DECA competition for her project focused on money management for fourth grade students. As a state winner, Taylor will compete in the international competition, which will be held in Anaheim, California in late April.

 “With the economic crisis going on in America today, I think it’s very important for students to start learning at a young age the importance of saving and spending their money wisely. Seeing the students understand the lesson and have fun with it was such a rewarding experience,” said Taylor Grimminger, Texans Credit Union Employee and CTE Center and Liberty HS Student. Taylor has been president of her high school’s DECA chapter for two years.

In 2008, Texans Credit Union opened a student-operated branch in the new Career and Technical Education (CTE) Center in Frisco as part of its financial literacy education initiative. The CTE Center is not a typical high school; it’s a supplemental center offering classes tailored for specific careers. The school offers courses that give students hands-on experience with professions such as banking, veterinary care, retail management and broadcasting. Upper-class students from all Frisco high schools feed into the CTE Center as their curriculum dictates. The branch is located in the lobby of the CTE Center at 9889 Wade Blvd.  

The CTE Center branch and ATM are open during school hours to students, teachers and administrators. Four high school students work at the credit union under the direction of an operations manager. Student employees learn employment and interviewing skills, problem solving and decision making in preparation for adulthood and the workplace. Additionally, Texans is partnering with other CTE Center classes in areas such as marketing, broadcast journalism and art to develop promotions geared towards the center’s students.

Texas DECA is a national association of marketing education students, which provides teachers and members with educational and leadership development activities to merge with the education classroom instructional program.

Texans Credit Union is a Texas-based, member-owned, not-for-profit financial cooperative with branches throughout North Texas, Austin and Houston. Texans provides financial products and services to almost 140,000 members and has assets of $1.7 billion. Visit the Texans website at www.texanscu.org for more information.