In a month where the corona virus has dominated the headlines, it seemed ironic that this year’s theme for the Academic Decathlon is “In Sickness and in Health.” But concerns over the virus didn’t cancel the state decathlon where more than 150 students and 80 volunteers who served as judges, proctors and aides gathered Sunday for the daylong event at the Knight Campus of CCRI.

In the competition’s 37th year, Bishop Hendricken High School won its 10th straight Rhode Island state title. The Hawks, coached by Sister Carol Anne Murray, soared past 10 other Rhode Island high school teams.

For 28 years, Sister Carol Anne Murray has pushed the team in order to make them better students in college. This may have been her swan song at Hendricken although that couldn’t be confirmed.

In an interview following Sunday’s competition she said she returns every year because of the joy of motivating kids to do what she asks of them and when they believe in their abilities. Getting students to this level is no easy feat, as the students are almost complete strangers at the beginning of the season. However, once the students enter Sister Carol Anne’s chemistry lab for their first practice, nothing matters except their common goal, winning a national championship.

Sister Carol Anne made no mention of her rumored retirement, and was only focused on the team, and its work to succeed at the nationals.

Sister Carol Anne said the boys are driven by wanting to keep the “green and gold legacy” alive. Meeting only twice a week for one to two hours, they often find themselves studying for about three hours outside of practice over the week in order to better prepare themselves for the competition. 

The Academic Decathlon is “a ten-event scholastic competition for teams of high school students.” Teams are comprised of 9 students evenly represented by “GPA” or “Grade Point Average”, with the honors students having the highest GPA’s and the scholastic and varsity level student’s GPA’s falling in descending order respectively.

With the national competition looming in Anchorage, Alaska, Sister Carol Anne said: “The students who have been to the national competition before will push the other students even harder.” With only three returning team members from last year's 2nd place finish at the National Competition, the team is going to have to work even harder to regain that success. Jonas Kendra, one of the returning Bishop Hendricken team members said, “We saw the scores, we saw what we did bad on, and we know how we are going to make those improvements!”

As of Monday it could not be determined whether the competition in Alaska would proceed as scheduled. The United States Academic Decathlon was unable to be contacted in regards to measures that would be taken if the teams were unable to travel to Alaska for the national competition because of the virus. The United States Academic Decathlon does however have the ability to conduct online tests for the national competition. According to Frank Lennox, Director of the RI Academic Decathlon, teams from China have been asked to participate in the national competition online.

Bishop Hendricken scored a total of 37,839.4 points, which is a little over 5,000 points more than second placed East Greenwich High School. Johnston placed third. The Hawks also took home first place in the Super Quiz. Toll Gate High School finished in fourth place with a total of 28,606.4 points.

Berit Olsson from Toll Gate, after receiving a gold medal for her speech in the honors, delivered it to the audience. Berit said on average Americans work 50 hours a week, and how Americans are overworked in some aspects. She explained how the average family spends just about 45 minutes a week together and the rest of the time is usually spent working at a job, or on the things that need to get done at home. The speech was delivered with finesse; Olsson never had to look at her notes.

The individual winners from Hendricken are: Timothy Moren in the honors division received a gold medal in music, art, and science, a silver medal in literature, and a bronze medal in economics, interview, and social science. Joseph D’Alfonso was the top scorer in the scholastic division, and also received a gold medal in music, economics, essay, art, science, literature, and social science, and a silver medal in speech, math, and interview. Walter Kretzer in the honors division received a silver medal in music. Christopher Relyea was the top scorer in the honors division, and also received a gold medal in essay, a silver medal in economics, art, and social science, and a bronze medal in music. Jonas Kendra in the scholastic division received a gold medal in math, a silver medal in economics, music, and social science, and a bronze medal in literature and science. Dylan Brunner in the scholastic division received a bronze medal in social science, economics, art, music, and speech. Bryce Lukens in the varsity division received a gold medal in math, science, art, and social science, a silver medal in music, and a bronze medal in literature. Charbel Khoury received a silver medal in speech and interview.

The individual winners from Toll Gate are: Frank Verria in the varsity division received a bronze medal in social science. Dylan Bailey in the varsity division received a gold medal in literature, and received a bronze medal in economics. Elana Caparco in the scholastic division received a gold medal in interview, and speech. Berit Olsson in the honors division received a gold medal in speech. Haylee Haney in the varsity division received a silver medal in essay and a bronze medal in interview. The other members of the Toll Gate team are Carlos Betancur, Camille Hopkins, Kaylah Staknis, and Thomas Torres, Abriana Skipworth, Haleigh Bennett, Jaehee Hyun, Jaemin Hyun, Shannon Roberts, Eunji Jang. The Toll Gate Team is coached by Steven Belanger.