For the second consecutive year, an EKU team has finished in the top four in an international on-line business management simulation challenge, and a second Eastern team consistently ranked in the top 10 in international class-wide competition throughout the semester.

Ronnie Lynch, an EKU senior finance major from McKee, competed as a one-man team in the 2001 Capstone Hall of Fame Challenge, competing against the likes of Auburn University, MIT, DePaul University and Georgia Tech, among others. After qualifying as one of the top six teams from among the more than 1,000 teams entered in the challenge, Lynch finished fourth overall.

Each team in the competition was given a mythical business to manage over an eight-year period compressed into one day. The ultimate goal is to produce the highest cumulative profits. The on-line event took place Saturday, Nov. 17.

"At this level of the competition, most people had gained experience in the class competition and knew what they were doing," said Lynch, "so you really had to consider their styles. It was definitely a learning experience."

Lynch also was a member of the team that finished the semester in the top 10 for all 10 success indicators in a competition made up of 1,150 class teams from colleges and universities across the United States and overseas. The semester competition covered a seven-year period and allowed one week per year.

Other members of the team, which ended the class competition second in stock price, were seniors Meka Williams, an accounting major from Beattyville; Matt Shackleford from Black Mountain, also an accounting major; Casey Wiseman, an information systems major from Dayton; Jason Woolery, a general business major from Irvine, and Danville resident Lisa Young, an accounting major.

Capstone, a product of Management Simulations Inc., is used by more than 400 colleges and universities to give their students hands-on experience in business decision-making, and the chance to apply some of the theory they've learned.

The six members of the EKU team agreed it definitely worked. "We had to make actual decisions together," Shackleford stressed. "Group work is being stressed in all classes, but in the Capstone class, it is taken to a new level."

Learning to cooperate across company structures is a lesson that will prove valuable in the real world, according to Young, who already has worked in corporate accounting.

"All the decisions were dependent on other decisions, whether they were in research and development, marketing, human resources, finance, total quality management or production," she explained, "and there was a lot of compromise involved."