Junior ROTC Squad Sets Sights on Competition

A group of students from Hueneme High School’s Navy Reserve program has qualified for a national scholastic and athletic competition, school officials announced this week.

Forty students from the Navy Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps took third place in a regional meet at USC last weekend. They faced off against members of 30 other NJROTC programs from high schools across the western United States.

The competition--which tests everything from physical fitness to knowledge of naval science--was a qualifying round for the annual National NJROTC Field Meet. Among the highlights last weekend for Hueneme High was a first-place finish in the test of basic marching and equipment handling.

The top-three finish sends the Hueneme High students to the finals at the Naval Amphibious Base near Coronado the weekend of April 4, said Capt. George Thompson, the school’s naval science instructor.

“Man, I haven’t gotten the kids off the clouds yet,” Thompson said. “It’s something they’d never dreamed they’d get to.”