SHS AcaDeca team claims state medal

SANDPOINT - As Coach Mary Bird watched her 12 Sandpoint High School Academic Decathlon team members stride confidently from the building at Boise State University where they had just completed six hours of testing in eight subjects on March 14, the first day of competition at the 2008 Idaho Academic Decathlon State Competition, she thought the decathletes definitely had “the right stuff.”

Team members Josh Allen, Jesse Cobb, Isaac Dunne, Heather Green, Jill Jacobs, Tommy Jacobs, Kyenna Jensen, Jamie Norstog, Brita Olson, Jeremiah Prummer, Nik Thorell, and Hope Woodruff were smiling as they walked to the Student Union Building.

SHS set the following goals this year for the state competition: All team members improve their overall individual scores, break 40,000 points for the team score, break 4,000 points for the Super Quiz score on this year's topic of the Civil War and beat Centennial for the Super Quiz trophy, and win five of the nine individual overall medals.

When the intense two days of competition were over, this year's AcaDeca state team not only met these goals but shattered them with all team members, including the three alternates, scoring over 6,000 points with their best totals ever.

SHS's team total of 43,595 points earned a second place trophy with an improvement of 6,116 points since the regional meet in February. SHS's Super Quiz team total of 4,737 points beat Centennial for the first place trophy by 250 points and was an improvement of 1,023 points since regionals in February.

SHS won six of the nine overall medals in state in 2008: Tommy Jacobs won silver in honors with 8,241 points, Jill Jacobs won bronze in honors with 8,236 points (five points difference between a brother and sister), Jeremiah Prummer won bronze in scholastic with 6,996 points, Isaac Dunne won gold in varsity with 7,062 points, Jamie Norstog won silver in varsity with 6,410 points, and Heather Green won bronze in varsity with 6,305 points.

Fifty individual medals were won by the SHS team plus the six overall medals. Highlights of individual efforts were Jill Jacobs and Dunne both earning medals in all three subjective subjects (speech, interview, and essay) with Dunne earning a perfect score of 1,000 in essay, Prummer winning gold in essay, Cobb and Allen both earning gold in interview, Jill Jacobs earning gold in music, Tommy Jacobs winning gold in Super Quiz with a score of 962, Norstog and Green winning seven medals, Dunne winning nine medals with six of them gold, and Jill and Tommy Jacobs both scoring over 8,000 points.

Each decathlete's team shirt front declared, “North Idaho-the 51st State.”

Jeremy Wallace, a former decathlete from Priest River, designed the team attire with the names and mascots of Bonners Ferry, Clark Fork, Priest River, and Sandpoint high schools emblazoned on the back on arrows pointing to Boise.

Seven objectively scored-by-scanner subjects and three subjectively scored-by- judges subjects comprise the 10 parts of an Academic Decathlon competition.

Each college-level subject is worth 1,000 points with all 10 totaling a perfect 10,000. Each state team consists of nine students, three in each of the three different grade point categories-Honors 3.75 and above, Scholastic 3.00 to 3.74, and Varsity below 3.

The top two individual total scores in each category make up the team total.

For the Sandpoint team in the large schools division, the record individual score at state was earned by Anna Jacobs in 2005 when she won a gold medal in Honors with 7,921 points. The SHS record for team total points was set last year at state with 39,653 points.

SHS beat Centennial High School, the perennial powerhouse in the past 15 years, in 2006 to earn the trip to Nationals in San Antonio, Texas.

In the medium schools' division, the Priest River Lamanna High School Aca-Deca team coached by Pat Karr won second place with a best-ever total of 33,271 points.

Team members include Mary Barkley, Emily Clipson, Kalea Fairchild, Pamela Kesner, Marissa Langager, Stephanie Naccarato, Shelby Owens, Joshua Rohrman, Avery Smith, Tristan Troudt, Silas Van Natter, and Johnny Zieske.

The Spartans finished third in Super Quiz Team and had two overall winners: Silas Van Natter won bronze in Scholastic with 5,933 points, and Avery Smith won gold in Varsity with 5,852 points. Along with these two overall medals, Priest River decathletes won another 18 individual medals.

Smith won gold in Super Quiz, language and literature, and economics. Zieske won gold in music, and Van Natter won gold in science. Kalea won gold in essay, and Shelby won gold in interview.

Bonners Ferry had their best team finish ever placing fourth in the medium schools division with a total of 30,848 points. The Badgers coach is Amy Cowley while team members include Charena Branscum, Taylor Dinning, Samantha Robertson, Brooke Roney, Ryan Skolnick, Jordan Stockton, Ticen Taylor, and Zachary Taylor.

The Badgers won 11 individual medals, including Zachary's gold in Interview.