Tales from the Aca-Deca Competition

We left Fairbanks at 6am Wednesday (Feb 20) morning. The team was (surprisingly) awake and ready for the 8 hour bus ride to Anchorage. This year, we took 11 students down to compete in the State Tournament for Academic Decathlon. Our Honors students were Michael Johnson, Trevor Christian, and Jess Reed. Our Scholastic students were Bryan Coty, Brighton Higbee, and Preston Walsh. Our Varsity students were Jade Benbow and Jean-Paul Brown. This year we had 3 alternates: Oscar Oravec, Aaron Falcon, and Koa Rosales. All but Michael, Trevor, Bryan, and Jade were new to competing on the main team this year!

We competed in Division II (against Hutch, Valdez, and Galena). The bus ride down was great. Monroe, West Valley, and Hutch all shared a bus. We got a lot of compliments for our students being on time and friendly! In Anchorage, our students really showed the best side of themselves. They studied, ate, and hung out as a team. Mr. DiTommaso and myself could not be more proud of them! From rallying support for one another when the nerves got to be too much, to just lightening the mood with a rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody down 4th Avenue in Anchorage (at the top of their lungs…), they stuck together. Mr. DiTommaso also took 7 of our team to an escape room Saturday afternoon. They escaped with 30 seconds left to spare!! 

The Awards banquet was Saturday evening. After a somewhat rough showing at Super Quiz on Friday, we were unsure of our overall score for the Division. We received the Fleetwood Award for improving by more 9000 points. Jessica Reed won 2nd for both Speech and Essay in the Honors category. Oscar earned the highest score in Art, Econ, Essay, Literature, Math, and Music in the Alternate category. Koa earned the highest score for Science and Speech in the Alternate category. And, Michael Johnson was the highest scorer on our team. We also managed to beat Hutch to claim 1st in our division for the first time since 2014! Great work Team!!

- Ms Jones (and Mr DiTommaso)