Japanese team wins competition: The Chesterton High School Japanese Language and Culture team won the Japanese Language and Culture Competition held Saturday, March 4, at Michigan City High School. Team members pictured are (front row) Elaine Schnabel and Brandon Patterson. Row two, Marie Queen, Rebecca Oddi, Melissa Frye, Martha Cedarstaff, Emilia Blaser and Aaron Dittmann. Row three, Amy Payne, Stephanie Frame, Crystal Saffran, Sarah Stewart, Austin White and Zach Wagner.   (Photo provided)

The CHS Japanese academic team won a state championship and placed two other teams in the final round of three at the Indiana Japanese Language and Culture Competition in Michigan City on Saturday.

The Japanese Language and Culture Competition is an academic competition for second, third and fourth-year students with categories including grammar, culture, kanji (Chinese characters), proverbs, listening, and onomatopoeic expressions.

CHS was led by the fourth-year team of Emilia Blaser, Brandon Patterson and Amy Payne who won their third consecutive state championship defeating Penn and Valparaiso high schools in the final round.

At the third-year level, the team of Sarah Stewart, Elaine Schnabel and Melissa Frye finished in third place behind Penn and Bloomington North high schools.

Also turning in an outstanding performance was the team of Austin White and Stephanie Frame.

The second-year team of Aaron Dittmann, Rebecca Oddi and Marie Queen also made it to the final round, placing third in their first competition behind Valparaiso and Bloomington North.

The other second-year team of Crystal Saffran, Martha Cedarstaff and Zach Wagner placed near the top of the division.

Forty-one teams from thirteen Indiana schools competed in this day-long competition.

While not competing, students had an opportunity to participate in Japanese traditional and modern cultural activities, which included calligraphy, origami, haiku, Dance Dance Revolution, manga drawing, traditional games and movies.

Posted 3/8/2006