Dressed in black, red and white hockey jerseys, the Academic Decathlon team made their journey to El Paso for the state meet held on Feb. 24-25. Out of the 30 districts present at the meet, Mansfield ISD sent three schools: Legacy, Lake Ridge and Summit High School. Junior Nathan Haslam received gold medals for his perfect scores in speech and literature.
“The AcaDec weekend was long and tiring but a whole lot of fun as I got to hang out with my teammates and even win a couple of medals,” Haslam said. “[It] really made the studying worth it.”
Students like senior Josh Hogue tested in ten different categories relating to World War II: art, mathematics, economics, music, science, social studies, language arts, essay, interview and speech. Hogue received a silver medal for his achievement in essay and a bronze for interview, and junior Elliot Reed earned a bronze medal upon placing third overall for interview. The team ranked 24th at the end of the regional meet and left the state meet in 19th place.
“My medals this weekend were extremely gratifying,” Hogue said. “I didn’t get first in anything, but I was up against the best schools in the state. Second and third place in two different categories was not disappointing in the slightest.”
Sponsor and Physics teacher John Davis has been a part of the AcaDec team experience since the early years of Legacy’s opening. Every year, he finds joy in watching students succeed in areas they thought they couldn’t.
“I like watching the students go from not knowing anything about the material to kinda half-way stressing about it and then having success with it,” Mr. Davis said. “There’s a lot of little things that I like. I think the thing I like the most is watching the students actually decide that they can be successful. I think that’s very important when they start putting in effort, and if that effort pays off and they get medals or they get rewarded for it and they see that. It is a lot of fun, but it’s a lot of stress and a lot of work. But it’s worth it. It’s good work and good stress and good fun.”
