Ansbach High School JROTC team competes in National Academic Bowl

ANSBACH, Germany -- The Ansbach High School Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps is on top of its game and has a reservation in Washington, D.C. to compete in the National Academic Bowl, June 26 through 30.

One of only 24 teams out of 1,600 schools nationwide to qualify and advance to the finals, the squad here -- Marie Cook, Anthony Thompson, Kiley Schreurs, and Ed Parowski -- have been working hard for further competition, said Lt. Col. Dennis Kirstein, senior Army instructor for Ansbach JROTC.

After advancing through the first two phases of the competition, the Ansbach team competes in the final championship round of The College Options Foundation's 2009 JROTC Leadership and Academic Bowl, on the campus of George Mason University, Kirstein explained.

"All JROTC battalions had to take the first test, which was around November, consisting of standard high school curriculum: Math, Science, English, and leadership skills, which we passed," said team member Cook.

"Then a few months later, around March, we had level two that we passed as well -- so Washington will be level three and that will determine the overall winner."

Cook added the team they prepared by studying specifically what they will likely see on standardized tests.

"Mostly we studied the SAT [Scholastic Aptitude Test] and ACT [American College Testing] questions, which is what the academics was mainly about, and kept up with current news for the current event questions," she said, adding it is like state level winning.

"We qualified for the academic portion, representing 2nd Brigade out of New Jersey, because they are responsible for all the Europe schools," Kirstein explained.

But the competition phases were conducted world-wide; so how did the teams compete'

"We did them all online," said Cook and explained the unique testing phases.

She adds the winning is good for the battalion and the school's reputation.

"Our battalion and school are getting known and shows our educators are good and provide the right materials to study, and that they taught us really well," she said.

"We have a good academic bowl team and we could probably continue to win in the future if we train future bowl members for next year. It would be nice if we could go every year," said Cook.

"It goes to prove what we already knew," said Kirstein, "We are the best -- in academics -- and have some excellent students."