South’s academic decathlon team has won the state competition and they have qualified to represent the state of Kansas at the national ACADEC competition, which is being held in Anchorage, Alaska. As of right now, the team is still trying to work out the budget to get there. To prepare, the students are having weekly meetings to continue studying the topic and getting national competition ready.

ACADEC is a national activity that involves a year-long topic that students study in a range of different areas and get to show their knowledge of the topic. At a competition, you typically have 10 different events which is why it’s called a decathlon. 

The ACADEC team usually prepares for their three different competitions each year by taking their resource guides and condensing them into PowerPoints. Members say it makes it a lot of fun to study the material as opposed to just reading and a book about the topic. 

Qualifying for national championships in anything is exciting, but there are many other emotions that go with it. 

“It’s a very good representation of how hard we work all throughout the year to study for state. And it also makes me feel personally proud because coming into the school year, knowing that we have such a great reputation in ACADEC, it was really important that we were able to keep the legacy going,” senior Eleanor Jones said.