All the flash cards, practice games and endless reading about the French Revolution paid off Friday for 18-year-old Thomas Gilgenast.
The senior at Creighton Prep in Omaha felt the pressure when he stepped onto the stage and was “a little nervous.” He barely beat the seven-second timer on a question that demanded he recall the dates of key French and American wars.
But Gilgenast and three Creighton Prep teammates turned in perfect scores in the grueling Super Quiz oral relay event of the 29th annual United States Academic Decathlon Nationals competition, leaving Nebraska's team hopeful for a division title.
A boisterous crowd of about 600 spectators, proudly wearing team colors, rang cow bells and cheered as 300 high schoolers from 35 states fielded brain-busting questions in a ballroom at the Holiday Inn near 72nd and Grover Streets in Omaha.
Scores from the relay will be added to scores from earlier written tests and interviews. The U.S. champion team will be named and individual honors handed out at a banquet Saturday.
A team from Seven Lakes High School in Katy, Texas, clad in bright orange jerseys, won the nine-round relay, the final event and tense climax to the two-day competition.
“The guys have worked night and day for the last several months,” said Shari Bourgeois, whose son, Mike, is on the Seven Lakes team.
Mike's dad, Steven, summed things up: “There's a lot of brain power in this room.”
Christie Whitbeck, principal of Seven Lakes High near Houston, said their high school is just five years old. This is the team's first trip to the national competition held for the first time in Omaha.
Whitbeck credited Seven Lakes' good showing to head coach John Irish for assembling an incredible group of kids and fostering a culture in the school that values academics.
Team members will miss their senior prom Saturday night, “and they don't even care,” Whitbeck said.
Iowa was represented by perennial power Cedar Rapids Jefferson High School.
Creighton Prep's coach Jeannie Brayman, who is assisted by Barb Hake, said her team's performance has been “terrific.”
Other Prep team members getting perfect scores were Dylan Carter, John Szalewski and Dane Weinert.
One Prep team member, Dan Goebel, fought off a severe headache, exacerbated by the noisy crowd, to take his place on stage during the relay.
The relay was truly a spectacle to behold.
On a stage flanked by state flags, wave after wave of students took their seats at tables edged in white bunting, behind them a giant U.S. decathlon banner.
Questions popped up on screens at either end of the hall. The moderator read each question and five possible answers. When he finished, the clock ticked down, and students had to mark their choice. A bell rang, the moderator signaled “pencils down,” and the right answer popped up on the screen.
Each student would signal his success on the question to teammates with a hand motion such as twirling a finger in the air or giving a thumbs-up. Teams reacted with bursts of cheers, hoots and applause.
The questions covered the gamut: French politics, philosophy, religion, government, Marie Antoinette, Napoleon Bonaparte and a host of other questions that would stump lesser minds.
Students, for example, had to know in pre-Revolution France the job of a vicaire a priest and the average Parisian's common exposure to daily violence prior to the Revolution.
Contact the writer:
444-1077, joe.dejka@owh.com
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
