CHS was the only school to place a team in the final round in each level of the Japanese Olympiad of Indiana at Valparaiso High School on Saturday, March 6.

The top finishing team for CHS was the third-year team which finished as the state runner-up. All six CHS teams finished in the top five of their divisions.

The Japanese Olympiad of Indiana is an academic competition for second, third and fourth-year students with categories including speaking, culture, kanji characters, proverbs, listening, history, and onomatopoeic expressions.

The CHS fourth-level team of Storm Anderson and Julia Puent finished in third place out of fourteen teams. The other fourth-year team of Bree Storey, Jannon Jeffries and Nicole Thompson finished in fifth-place.

The third-year team of Brandon Moore, Ryan Gorman and Celian Mooradian finished in second place in the seventeen-team division. The other third-year team of DJ Gallagher, Carly Hoffman and Abi Lindstedt ended up in fourth-place. Mike Jankowicz, Ashley Irzyk and Kelsey Reinhart were alternates at level three.

In the second-level final, Donny Puent, Brooke Kravitz and Jessica Lohse placed third. The other second-year team of Suzanne Williams, Lajos Gazdag and Grayson Wingate finished in fifth-place out of twenty two teams.

Fifty two teams from fifteen high schools competed in this year’s competition.

During the competition, team members had an opportunity to participate in Japanese modern and traditional cultural activities, which included traditional games, origami, movies, video games, and tea ceremony.

Exchange student and assistant coach, Shiho Fukuda, also accompanied the teams.

Posted 3/12/2010