Cape's JROTC Academic Leadership Team excels at national competition

The Cape Henlopen High School Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps Academic Leadership Team excelled over the summer, advancing to the final round of the JROTC Academic Leadership Competition held in Washington, D.C.. The JROTC is a high school club whose purpose is to educate high school students in leadership roles.

The club assembled a team to participate in a series of competitions over the school year ending with the JROTC Academic Leadership Competition. The students met twice a week after school to study and prepare for these competitions. Students competed in both leadership and academic segments of the competition. The leadership portion of the contest involved responding to questions regarding the leadership curriculum set forth by the JROTC. In the academic part of the competition, students answered questions similar to those on the SAT and ACT tests.

The total contest was a series of three events. Each event had questions for both the leadership team and the academic teams. The first event was called The Challenge, and the CHHS team placed in this event, advancing to the next round. The second event was called Zero Hour Threat, and again the CHHS team advanced to the third and final event which was the championships.

This is the second straight year the CHHS team qualified, but the first time the team participated in the final competition due to funding. The CHHS team was the only one representing Delaware this year. Some 1,700 Army JROTC programs in high schools around the globe participated at the onset of the competition in October. By qualifying for the final competition in Washington, D.C., the CHHS team ranked as one of the top 24 teams in the world.

Under the direction of Sgt. Richard Hurt, the leadership team consisted of Olivia Baratto, Nicole Surface, Jake Sirinades and Jade Jefferson. Their academic team counterparts were Dustin Benton, Alexandra Atsidis, David Collord and Mozella Matthews. All of the cadets returned to Delaware with favorable impressions of the competition. Jefferson said, "The competition was rigorous and challenged our knowledge about leadership and American history and college opportunities."

The Cape JROTC will assemble a team again this year for the yearlong competition.