‘The Dornack difference’

On March 31, when Creston High School junior Dylan Dornack heard his name called as winner of the Iowa FBLA presidential election, he was ready.

“I was a little confident in myself; you’ve got to be. A bad mentality isn’t going to get me anywhere,” Dornack said. “They go, ‘Your 2026/2027 Iowa FBLA state president...’ And then time kind of slows down a little bit there; it’s almost like you hit a little warp. It just slows down, and then they go, ‘... Dylan Dornack,’ and I’m already hitting the stairs.”

With this win, Dornack replaces Caroline Van Pelt of Fairfield as state president. Other state positions include state secretary and state treasurer. Dornack will serve as president until the next Iowa FLBA state convention in March 2027.

Dornack had prepared for this moment for a long time. Just a year earlier at the annual state convention, he was announced as the Iowa FBLA District 6 vice president. Because of this leadership position, Dornack has had the opportunity to work with FBLA students from around the state and was key to putting on this year’s convention.

The Future Business Leaders of America is a student organization preparing students for careers in business through competitions, leadership development and networking.

As a state leader, Dornack was on double duty during the FBLA state convention.

“I had to go to a few things at the state conference and I ended up missing a few of our chapter photos,” Dornack said. “I don’t think there’s a photo that has me in it from our state leadership conference as a whole chapter purely because I was running around handling little fires and putting those out.”

At the same time, Dornack was competing in various events, even placing in the top 10 in Iowa for public speaking. And while Dornack has been working to become the president for a while now, his official campaign didn’t start until the first day of the conference, March 29.

“Applications came out in December. I had mine submitted like the day after they went live because I was very ambitious about it,” Dornack said. “Those all close around February-ish and then they get an email saying, ‘Hey, you’re in.’ You have to submit a campaign speech, your campaign booth mockup and then you also have to have a budget of all your campaign booth materials.”

Dornack ran on the motto “The Dornack difference,” which featured three points.

“It stood on three key principles of enhancing public speaking across Iowa FBLA, enhancing the leadership in Iowa FBLA and then also enhancing the communication from the state-to-district and district-to-local levels,” Dornack said. “That was kind of what that speech entailed, why they should pick me.”

CHS FBLA advisor Mahayla Hill said she wasn’t surprised when she heard Dornack wanted to continue past his role as a state officer.

“He talked with me and he decided that he wanted to run for president because he had a lot of visions that he held for Iowa FBLA and how he wanted to continue contributing at a larger level than just at the district,” Hill said.

Not only is this a good experience for Dornack, but Hill said this will serve as an inspiration for other Creston students.

“I think this will also encourage more students in the future to apply and campaign for state positions. And even if they’re not campaigning for state positions, they can still be part of the district council because that’s where Dylan started at,” Hill said. She added that with Dornack hearing from other FBLA students around the state, new ideas will be brought to the Creston chapter. " I think that’ll bring a lot of creativity to our chapter and bring us into new ideas, new community service projects, new fundraising opportunities."

Previous projects the Creston FBLA team has completed include making tie blankets for local nursing homes, Uptown Clean Up Days and fundraising for veteran Honor Flights.

Though the school year is almost over, Dornack encourages students to take a chance on FBLA next year.

“I’d say FBLA is an amazing opportunity for anybody at all, whether you’re really interested in business or you’re not,” Dornack said. “FBLA is just one of those things that will help assist you from that school-to-work transition, especially within the business world.”