The FHS Academic Decathlon team won the Regional competition at Clear Brook High School on Friday and Saturday, January 28 and 29.  The team won first place in the medium school division and will advance to state February 26-28 in San Antonio.
    The focus topic for this year is the Great Depression, and the Super Quiz is Geology with a focus on the Dust Bowl.
    Following the rigor of the day of tests, the super quiz relay was held around 3:30 in the Clear Brook gym.       This is a public contest and an audience is welcomed. The team won the Super Quiz relay and the Overall Super Quiz.
    “We outscored every school, medium and large, on the Super Quiz relay,” Coach Renae Simons said. “Our team won 80 of the 90 individual medals with sweeps in Social Science, Language and Lit and Super Quiz.”
    The FHS team has been preparing for this since the summer, according to Coaches Leslie Berryhill, Arden Curtis, and Simons.  The students have sacrificed mornings, afternoons and weekends to prepare.  They are the defending regional champions and second place team in the state in 2010.
    On Friday evening the students wrote a timed essay, then gave a prepared speech followed by an impromptu speech. They were also judged on their interview abilities.  
    On Saturday, they took seven timed tests on math, economics, music, social science, art, language and literature, and super quiz.  Six of the tests contain 50 multiple-choice questions and the math contains 35 questions.  The students have 30 minutes of each test.
    Team members are Winston Wu, Brandon Goddard, Corey Smith, Davis Anderson, Hayden Prentice, Chase Stanford, Grady Burge, Liz Harris, and Zack Thompson.
    Alternates include Austin Stump, Bryan Holcomb and Rachel Hume.
    The team and coaches would like to thank the support of our sponsors, the many community members who served as judges for speech and interview practices, and the teachers and administration for their support of the program.