FULLERTON : Decathlon Will Test Sunny Hills Scholars

Four students from Sunny Hills High School gained knowledge but lost sleep as they prepared for an academic contest today against 11 other teams drawn from Southern California’s scholastic elite.

They will find out this morning whether the hard work has paid off as the team competes in the final leg of an academic decathlon to test its familiarity with European culture, geography and current events. First prize is a weeklong trip to Europe.

The Sunny Hills students, the only Orange County team to make the finals, are Louie Cheng, Jedidiah Yueh, Ken Chen and Janet Lee. Principal George Giokaris said the students, all 16-year-old juniors, have prepared exhaustively for the competition.

“They have divided up the areas to make sure that at least one of the four team members is as much as an expert as possible on subject matter related to Germany,” he said.

American history teacher Patrick Lampman, who coaches the team, called the kids “incredibly ambitious.”

“These guys have been pulling all-nighters since as long as I’ve known them,” Lampman said. “They’re all taking advanced calculus--these are kids that would wear you out just being with them.”

When the students decided to compete, they went to college libraries and compiled information from books and State Department documents about European countries.

“These guys are absolutely voracious,” Lampman said. “Their GPAs are all well over 4.0--probably like 4.5. They’re real self-motivated and the group really blends well together. They push each other.”

The five highest scoring teams will become “Ambassadors to Europe” and will travel on Dec. 9 to Germany with their teachers.

“The kids say they’re going to win. They’re not shooting for fifth; they’re shooting for first,” Lampman said. “If you were going to bet the ranch, these are the kinds of people you’d want to bet the ranch on.”

The top 12 teams for the finals were selected from 600 teams, representing more than 3,000 students. The competition, sponsored by the Los Angeles Times and Lufthansa German Airlines, begins at 11 a.m in the Harry Chandler Auditorium of the Los Angeles Times.