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Academic Fete

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SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

By now, Moorpark’s academic decathletes are practiced celebrities.

They’ve learned how to handle the TV cameras with a quick sound bite. They don’t mind shaking the hands of adoring kiddie fans. They’ve even learned the parade wave, perfect for sitting on the back of a sports car and greeting your fans.

They had to employ those waves Sunday, as the team that won the national Academic Decathlon championship last month continued its victory celebration, rolling through town in convertibles as Moorpark residents dotted the streets and honked their car horns.

“I’m impressed and excited,” said Deana Scott, a Moorpark High School sophomore who stopped by Campus Canyon School to see the procession begin. “Moorpark’s so small. We’re not even on half the maps--and now we’re in national newspapers.”

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The hourlong route took team members past some of their favorite study spots and the local businesses that supported them with donations or awards. The procession ended at the high school, where students had an outdoor dinner with local politicians and garnered even more awards.

They’re a little amazed by their newfound renown.

“I was just walking to my friend’s house, and this guy recognized me on the street,” said Mitul Patel. “He said everybody was really proud of us. It’s like the first time ever anything like this has happened to me.”

On April 18, after two days testing, orating and interviewing, Moorpark’s squad defeated 38 teams from throughout the country during the finals in Fullerton. In doing so, it became the first Ventura County high school to win the national title. Before this year, no school from the county had even qualified for the nationals.

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Moorpark squeezed by its main rival from Texas by nearly 400 points, upsetting a team that many favored to win.

A month before, Moorpark had taken the state championship by defeating last year’s winner, El Camino Real High of Woodland Hills, at the finals in Stockton.

The team members, Patel, Valerie Lake, Ari Shaw, Arturo Barragan, Alexandra Dove, John Ellis, Nick Lange and Rebecca Wershba, scored 50,225 out of 60,000 possible points in the 18th annual national competition, which tested students’ knowledge in areas ranging from calculus to consumer spending. They left the tournament with dozens of medals and arrived back in Ventura County to a chorus of cheers and excitement.

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Politicians congratulated them on their smarts, newscasters showcased them on channel after channel of TV news, and their home school cheerleaders waved pom-poms as they would for sports heroes.

Getting to the nationals involved no end of mental exercise. The students spent nearly a year preparing: taking more than 500 sample tests, rehearsing their speeches more than 100 times, reading the required novels four times each. For the team, spring break was not a period of rest, just 95 more hours in which to study.

In addition to the waves of adulation, the rewards of their study keep pouring in. They have received thousands of dollars in scholarships and will be taking trips to the governor’s office and to a NASA shuttle launch in Florida.

The group is even expected to appear on an upcoming Comedy Central quiz show, in which they’ll compete against a group of professors.

All of which is a little heady for this group of teenagers.

“The support and congratulations are great,” Shaw said. “I don’t think I expected this many people to react the way they have.”

And it’s something some of the students could get used to.

“I kind of like being a celebrity,” Ellis said.

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