Frontier High School Named Academic Decathlon Champs
Frontier High School received the Claude W. Richardson perpetual trophy as the overall team winner of the 43rd annual Kern County Academic Decathlon, which concluded today at Stockdale High School. Nearly 100 students from 12 high schools participated. Frontier High will represent Kern County in the California Academic Decathlon scheduled for next month.
Rounding out the top five teams were:
2nd place – Stockdale High School
3rd place – Arvin High School
4th place – West High School
5th place – Highland High School
Academic Decathlon is made up of ten events including Art, Economics, Essay, Interview, Language and Literature, Mathematics, Music, Science, Social Science, and Speech, plus a Super Quiz. The majority of the subjects were contested virtually on January 31 & February 1. Today’s contest featured the final two in-person categories — the speech competition and the Super Quiz.
The Super Quiz is a pressure-packed 90-minutes of excitement, run like a TV quiz show. Team members have ten seconds to collaborate and answer each question. Running totals are displayed on large, visible flip cards, bringing about enthusiastic reactions from the audience.
Each school’s team consisted of a maximum of nine students: three “A” (honor), three “B” (scholastic) and three “C” (varsity) entrants. They competed against other students in the same divisions. The team compiling the most points captured first place. Individual medals were also awarded to first, second and third place finishers in each category and division.
Overall individual top scores in this year’s Academic Decathlon went to:
Honors Division
1st place – Justin Magugat, Stockdale High
2nd place – Abbett Xander Monte de Ramos, Frontier High
3rd place – Natalie Hawkins, Frontier High
Scholastic Division
1st place – Olivia Ussery, Frontier High
2nd place – Natalie Torrez, Arvin High
3rd place – Sebastian Garcia, Frontier High
Varsity Division
1st place – Andrew Bluemel, Frontier High
2nd place – Paige Williams, West High
3rd place – Ian Hansen, Frontier High
Super Quiz Winner (Milo Hall Trophy)
Frontier High School
Super Quiz Photo Gallery
By Robert Meszaros
Rob Meszaros is Director of Communications for the Kern County Superintendent of Schools, where he has served since 2012. In his role, Meszaros oversees media relations, internal and external communication strategies, publications, Marcom, branding, and multi-media content creation. Before joining KCSOS, Meszaros was the PIO for CSU Bakersfield and earlier worked for seven years at The Bakersfield Californian.