Students take 4th place in academic bowl

This year was the first time Champion sent a team to the competition.
By MIKE VAN CLEAVE
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
CHAMPION -- On a night filled with student accolades, five impressive high-school students who attended Monday's school board meeting were waved at rather than applauded.
Champion high-school teacher Catherine Anderson explained to the audience filled with more than 30 parents and students that her students in the deaf/hard-of hearing program would appreciate it if they could have their applause given to them in sign language.
After Anderson taught the audience how to applaud, parents and children responded to the five members of the Champion Deaf/Hard of Hearing Academic Bowl team by raising their arms and waving their hands in the air.
Stephanie Kesterke, Panagiotis Sotirakis, Amber Van Orman, Gregory Mendenhall and Dorothy Voyda each responded to the applause they were given. They earned fourth place in the Midwest Regional National High School Academic Bowl for deaf/hard-of-hearing students at Gallaudet University in Chicago. They expressed gratitude to school board members for allowing the team to compete this year.
First year of competition
This year was the first time Champion had sent a team to the competition, which challenges high-school students to express themselves in a test of knowledge on school-related topics, such as mathematics and current events.
In the competition's eight-year history, few first-time competitors have done as well as the Champion team did, students said.
The five-member team traveled to Gallaudet University to compete against 16 other teams April 1 to 3.
Anderson attributes the team's success to the students' learning how to communicate.
She said deaf /hard-of-hearing students from all over Trumbull County, including as far off as Rootstown, attend Champion so they can be with students who are like themselves.
"Allowing them to interact with each other frees them to interact with everyone else," she said.
She said Champion is the only school in the area to offer a specialized program for deaf/hard-of-hearing students.
Other recipients of accolades were Ashley Montecalvo, Logan McGraw, Olivia Chandler, Corrin Lawrence and Rachael Shaver of the fifth-grade Imagination Destination Team, which won first place in the regional Imagination Destination competition. The team is now scheduled to compete at the state level April 24, at Boardman Center Middle School and Boardman High school.