Countywide : 3 Students Win Trip to Germany

Three students from Tustin Unified School District’s Foothill High School and their teacher on Monday earned a trip to Germany for finishing among the top four teams in the Ambassador to Europe competition.

Ten teams of three to four students each from high schools across Southern California participated in the two-hour oral competition that tested the students’ knowledge of Germany’s people, history, culture and government.

Wesley Hussey, Kristen Lawrence and Marisa Schelin stumbled on one question on economics but got enough points from the other categories to win an 11-day, expense-paid tour of Berlin, Bonn and other German cities next month.

The team’s adviser, Helga De Leon, a German teacher at Foothill High, will accompany the team.

Other winners were Canyon High School of Santa Clarita, Imperial High School of Pasadena and Walter Reed Junior High School of North Hollywood. The competition, now in its fourth year, is co-sponsored by Lufthansa Air Lines, the German National Tourist Office and the Los Angeles Times in Education Program, which administers the competition.

University High School of Irvine tied for first after five rounds but failed to answer the final question correctly and finished sixth.

“I was scared to death, but I was having the time of my life,” said Hussey, whose trip to Germany will be his first outside North America. He has been to Canada, he said.

Lawrence, 17, a junior, said she will take an electronic keyboard in case she gets a chance to play in one of the churches.

Schelin, 16, also a junior, said it will also be her first trip to Europe.

For a while, though, it seemed the Foothill High team would be knocked out of the running for the top four slots.

After scoring well on questions about geography, culture and government, Hussey and his teammates scored only 7 1/2 points of a possible 15 when they failed to give the complete answer on an economics question.

Hussey, who was designated to give the team’s answer to the judges, said he blanked out on the question and remembered only half of the answer.

The question was: How does Germany rank among the world’s top exporters? How does it rank among exporters to the United States?

Both times, Hussey answered it was second. That’s correct on the first question, but Germany is fourth as an exporter to the United States.

Hussey said the team had met at least three times a week for the past two months to study about Germany.

The effort was worth it, they said.

“You’ve got to believe you can do it,” said Lawrence.”It was a challenge to us and we made it.”

“It was hard but it was fun,” said Schelin.

Kathy Graham Headly of the Times in Education Program said the finalists were selected from hundreds of high schools, which submitted an essay entitled “Germany Today--The Newest Old Country.”

The other participants were Bell High School, Beverly Hills High School, Helix High School of La Mesa, Lakewood High School and Pasadena High School.