DHS academic decathlon team named southern regional champions

The Durango High School Academic Decathlon team won the Southern Colorado Academic Decathlon Regional championship Nov. 12 at Adams State College in Alamosa. Academic Decathlon is a nationwide competition in which high school teams compete in 10 different events. Teams Durango 1 and Durango 2 finished first and second with 15,500 and 15,100 points respectively; the third-place team had 11,500 points by comparison. The students competed in mathematics, economics, history of modern China, climatology, interview, and decathlon (overall score), winning eight out of nine medals in climatology and economics and all nine medals in History. Durango also won all nine medals for the overall top Decathletes. In April DHS will compete against Boulder High School for the state title and opportunity to represent Colorado at the National Academic Decathlon in Honolulu.

The categories are assessed by difficult, college‑level exams on which scores over 50 percent are rare. Remarkably, senior Derek Webb scored 3,172 points in 5 events, the highest cumulative score acquired by a DHS student in several years. He also won the gold medal in every event but one. Junior Dylan VanKampen scored 725 out of 1000 on the climatology exam (the highest in the state) and senior Caitlin Morgan scored an almost perfect 970 on her interview.

Individual awards include Overall Decathletes, gold: Nick Ganevsky, Derek Webb, and Dylan VanKampen; silver: Caitlin Morgan, Sunny Ketchum, and Ian Cross; bronze: Haiyun (Heidi) Hu, Kelsey Parks, and Morgan McLaughlin. History of Modern China, gold: Nick Ganevsky, Derek Webb, and Dylan VanKampen; silver: Caitlin Morgan, Jessy Exum, and Ryan LePlatt; bronze: Haiyun (Heidi) Hu, Kelsey Parks, and Morgan McLaughlin. Climatology, gold: Haiyun (Heidi) Hu, Derek Webb, and Dylan VanKampen; silver: Nick Ganevsky, Kelsey Parks, and Ian Cross; bronze: Sunny Ketchum, and Ryan LePlatt. Economics, gold: Derek Webb, Andy Kosmetschke, and Morgan McLaughlin; silver: Nick Ganevsky, Sunny Ketchum, Ian Cross, and Dylan VanKampen; bronze: Caitlin Morgan, Kelsey Parks, and Ryan LePlatt. Interview, gold: Caitlin Morgan and Sunny Ketchum; silver: Nick Ganevsky, Ian Cross, and Dylan VanKampen; bronze: Derek Webb. Mathematics, gold: Derek Webb and Dylan VanKampen; silver: David Rea, and Jessy Exum; bronze: Ryan LePlatt.

For more information, contact Damian Nash at 259-1630, ext. 2221.

###