PRLHS AcaDeca students medal in numerous state categories

Students at Priest River Lamanna High School finished the state Academic Decathlon this year with numerous placements in categories including music, art, math, essay, speech, science, interview and economics.

This year, all of the topics students studied issues related to the Cold War in a 1,700-page booklet.

“You guys couldn’t wait to get rid of those binders,” teacher Anne Barker-Simon joked to her students.

Some team members had a specific focus going into the competition this year, such as Blake Miller, who said his favorite category is economics. Others including freshman Levi Hanna and sophomore Caleb McDermeit chose to go with a broader focus, studying a wide range of different categories.

“I just read through all of it a little bit,” Hanna said.

Collectively, the six-person team earned 24 medals and placed eleventh out of 39 teams. That’s especially impressive, Barker-Simon said, given how small her team is.

“It’s good,” she said. “Maybe we weren’t Top 10, but we were right there.”

Nikita Angel, a sophomore competed at the scholastic level earning a top “silver” decathlon score of 4,648.6 and medaling in music, science, essay, speech and interview.

Hanna, meanwhile, placed as the top decathlete for the team’s varsity section, earning a $300 scholarship and medaling in literature, music, science, art, math, essay, speech and interview.

This year, students competed online instead of in-person. That made the experience a little more relaxed, McDermeit said, although several students also had to work through technical problems. In one event, the students were an hour late due to a scheduling miscommunication.

Studying for the decathlon also had its own challenges this year, Barker-Simon said.

Among them was the period this past school year when students and teachers switched to a hybrid learning schedule.

“I was only seeing them once a week,” she said.

Despite that, the students kept up with their studies and placed better than they had the previous year. Now, the team is already looking ahead to the next competition, which will focus on water resources.

The ability to compete will hinge on the passage of the county’s replacement levy in May, which failed its first round earlier this month. Without it, extracurriculars like AcaDeca will be cut.

Still, Barker-Simon noted she’s already pre-ordered the study packets for next year so students would have them in the spring and be able to study throughout the summer, if they wanted to.

“Yeah, summer study group!” one student exclaimed.

Part of what makes AcaDeca fun is the social aspect of the group, Miller said. The small class means they’ve gotten to know each other well, and they have fun.

Originally the class was larger, Barker-Simon said, but once students saw just how much work there would be, many chose to drop the class.

The students who remained said they’ve enjoyed learning about the different subjects. For Miller, the Cold War was especially interesting. sophomore Ethan Korff said he likes the variety of subjects they covered.

“You kind of learn something new every day you read,” he said. “You basically get to go at your own speed, too. So that's nice.”

At first, several students said they took the class to fill a communication credit. It’s only after they started that they realized how much they liked it.

I didn't really know what it was, I just heard that it would be fun. So I joined, and it turned out I like it a lot,” Korff said.

Hanna joined after his sister convinced him and McDermeit, their cousin, to join.

“I heard pretty awesome things about AcaDeca and the communication credit,” he said. “I thought it would be a softer year, but I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.”

Barker-Simon said she’s incredibly proud of the team’s accomplishments.

“They sit in the group and they talk it out and they work on it. And sometimes I put up Jeopardy on the screen, or we do one of those Quizlet flashcards,” she said. “But in all honesty, it's all on them. The medals they won are their success.”