Thousand Oaks High Reclaims Academic Decathlon Honors : Education: Scholars edge out second-place Moorpark High as Simi Valley takes third. Westlake is the ‘most-improved.’

Thousand Oaks High School won the Ventura County Academic Decathlon Saturday, regaining its dominance in the grueling scholastic event after losing to Ventura’s Buena High School for two years in a row.

With their understated motto “relatively hot,” Thousand Oaks came in first in overall school performance, scoring a total of 40,002 points and edging out Moorpark High, the second-place finisher, by about 400 points. Simi Valley High School placed third, and Westlake High in Thousand Oaks won in the category of most-improved school.

“We spent the last two nights studying. We put a lot of work in this,” said Gillian O’Doherty, 17, a senior at Thousand Oaks, who won individual first places in the social science, essay and language and literature categories.

“I didn’t think we’d do so well. I’m really surprised,” said John Pearson, a world history teacher at Thousand Oaks who has been the school’s decathlon coach since the event began 11 years ago. “You just don’t know how much the kids have absorbed until today.”

“We really learned this stuff in the last two days during a cram session,” said senior Greg Leitzel, 17. “We were on a caffeine and a sugar high.”

The victory was the eighth for Thousand Oaks High School. The school will represent Ventura County at the California State Decathlon in Stockton in March, 1993.

More than 100 students from 13 county schools participated in Saturday’s event at Rio Mesa High School in Oxnard.

The day’s main event was the Super Quiz, where a moderator asked students a range of questions about world leaders and achievers. Held in the school’s gym, the quiz was a spectator sport for parents and coaches with video cameras, who cheered on their teams from the bleachers. Only one pompon was spotted at the intellectual event.

But running a mile or vaulting a wall might have been easier than the battery of tests that started at 8 a.m. on topics such as economics, fine arts, language and literature, mathematics, science and social science.

Contestants faced a battery of wide-ranging questions. Among them: Why did Ben Nighthorse Campbell run for Congress? Where did Placido Domingo have his first professional singing engagement?

Moorpark High School edged out the other teams and took a first in the Super Quiz.

“For a little Podunk school like Moorpark, we did great up against the big kids,” said Larry Jones, the team’s coach and a Moorpark world history teacher.

In addition to the quiz, students were judged on individual tests given throughout the day. Students also gave 10-minute speeches to a panel of judges, the topics reflecting their diverse interests: gymnastics and success, gun control, a defense of Michael Milken, maturity and death, to name a few.

Melanie Chieu, 15, a junior at Camarillo High School, said her speech was on hazardous waste and the Love Canal in New York. “Is it truly cleaned up?” she asked rhetorically. “I started realizing that we’re raping our environment and hurting the future.”

Marcia Brock, mother of Aaron Heisler, 16, a junior at Newbury Park High, said her son became involved “for his transcripts, and he likes to talk.” In his speech, he defended the game Dungeons and Dragons, arguing that it is not a cult and does not lead to suicide.

Although the event has no cash prizes, membership on a decathlon team is a plus when applying to colleges and for scholarships, said Steve Kingsford, assistant superintendent of Ventura County schools. To be on a school’s team, a student must have a 3.75 to 4.0 grade point average. A few schools offer classes geared to the event, but most don’t offer credit and coaches often volunteer their time.

“The decathlon creates some tension and excitement around academics that is usually reserved for athletics,” Kingsford said. “Kids are sometimes ridiculed for being academic.”

But for a day, these students were academic jocks, cheered and “high-fived” as they showed off their ability to answer questions.

“We gave our lunch periods every day since the beginning of school,” said Tamikka Sykes, 17, a senior at La Reina High School. “I like the multicultural aspect of this year. The curriculum in my school isn’t as culturally diverse as I’d like it to be.”

“It’s a lot of pressure and you get nervous. The team met often and made sure we studied on our own. I thought it would be a neat experience,” said Maria Del Rocio Villasenor, 17, a Channel Island High School senior.

The Ventura Schools Federal Credit Union contributed $2,500 toward the event, Kingsford said.