Su Valley student wins silver medal in AcaDeca competition

ACADECA TEAM— The Su Valley High academic decathlon team, pictured here with coach Pat Bills, placed sixth overall in last week’s GCI Alaska Academic Decathlon competition. Photo courtesy of Lisa Seifert

Su Valley high school student Jens Timmers managed to win the silver medal in last week’s GCI Alaska Academic Decathlon held in Anchorage. Timmers won in the essay category . He also won a trophy for being his team’s highest scorer.

Jens Timmers’ silver medal winning essay dealt with the theme of the French Revolution and an interpretation of death, burial and resurrection in Charles Dickens’ novel “Tale of two cities”.

After the departure of former AcaDeca coach David Stull, Su Valley high school teacher Patricia Bills continued to coach the team. In last week’s competition, Su Valley had only eight of nine possible team members in place. They were brothers Jens and Steen Timmers, Forrest Morgan, Bayne Salmon, Genna Moses, Matt Colon, Kenzy Holbrooke and Mike Jurasek.

Su Valley Jr./Sr. High School finished in sixth place in their 3-A school division. They were the only team from the Mat-Su borough school district to have participated in the state-wide AcaDeca competition. Altogether, seventeen AcaDeca teams competed.

The academic decathlon is considered the toughest scholastic event for high school students and those winning the state competition, go on to compete on the national level. This year, Lathrop High took home the win in the large schools category.