LAKEPORT, Calif. – Members of the Clear Lake High School Academic Decathlon team recently traveled to Sacramento to compete against nearly 600 other students in the state level three-day competition.

This intensive competition centered around this year’s theme, “New Alternatives in Energy: Ingenuity and Innovation” and included a speech and interview portion as well.

Coach Jim Rogers accompanied his students as they went head to head with 65 other county teams from throughout California.

Decathletes competed in economics, art, music, language and literature, mathematics, science, super quiz, essay, interview and speech.

Although Clear Lake High will not be advancing to the national competition, they did claim one individual medal at the competition.

Senior Chris Vincent was awarded a bronze medal in the essay portion of the competition.

“Aca Deca has allowed me to expand my breadth of knowledge while meeting other peers with similar interests,” Vincent said. “Being on an academic team builds everlasting relationships and connections. I thank Clear Lake High, Lake County Office of Education and our supporters, teammates and Coach Rogers for the opportunity and experience.”

The experience of being an academic decathlete goes beyond learning about the yearly subject and competing for medals.

Students and coaches work hard to develop a variety of skills that will benefit them later in life including test taking strategies and public speaking. 

At the state competition students get the opportunity to meet hundreds of students from throughout the state and attend a mixer/dance after all competition is done.

The journey to representing Lake County in Sacramento came with a tremendous amount of local support.

Donations received from a variety of businesses, organizations and individuals made the trip possible without costing the students to participate.

Besides the monetary support given by the community, The Lodge at Blue Lakes and the Lake County Friends of Mendocino College, staff members at CLHS gave countless hours helping the students prepare for the competition. 

This was the last year for longtime CLHS team coach Jim Rogers.

“Decathlon is the class that taught me how much I love to be a student,” Rogers said. “I’ve learned more art history in Aca Deca than I learned in college. And instead of testing, I was the coach; we worked together and learned together.”

English teacher Kristi Tripp will take over as Clear Lake’s Academic Decathlon coach in the fall.

With the local and state competition behind them, decathletes are eager to start preparing for next year.

Schools already are recruiting new team members and gathering study material to get jump start on next year’s competition.

The 2016 topic will be India; the science portion will focus on an introduction to ecology to include case studies and examples relevant to India.

The literature selection will be the novel “Nectar in a Sieve” by Kamala Markandaya.

For more information on the Lake County Academic Decathlon Program please contact the Lake County Office of Education at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 707-994-9001.