Third in the nation
CHERRY TWP — A team of nine students from Moniteau High School placed third in the nation in an academic decathlon competition April 27 and 28.
The online competition pitted Moniteau against 22 other school districts.
"Since we were in the small school division, we competed online," said Dana Thimons, the Moniteau team adviser. "The large division schools actually went to Texas and competed."
Students competed in math, anatomy, language and literature, art, music, economics and essay writing, plus a variable subject.
"Every year they're given a new subject to study," Thimons said. "It's called a super quiz. This year it was on the Renaissance."
The students practice all year for the decathlon, starting in May.
"We've already gotten our materials for next year," Thimons said.
Since the competition was done over the Web, students were not tested on interviewing or speech skills, which are normally part of the curricula.
Moniteau chooses students to compete based on three preliminary competitions, which are sponsored by the Academic Sports League.
At the end of the preliminaries, the average of the three test scores are computed, and those students with the highest overall averages are picked for the decathlon team.
The Moniteau team first competed at the regional level, then nabbed first place at the state level, which qualified it for the national competition.
"We received 11 medals total (at nationals), which was significant," Thimons said. "I'm not sure if the large division schools did that well."
The decathlon competition was open to grades nine through 12, and is sponsored by the United States Academic Decathlon. The Moniteau team competes through the Erie School District.
Thimons said Moniteau has been competing in the decathlon for at least 12 years.
Member of the Moniteau team are seniors Ryan Eberlein, Michael Pope, Jesse Delach and Cory Campbell, juniors Cody Slater, Travis Shaffer, Matt O'Malley and Mark Holselder and sophomore Paul Thompson.
