EWING, Va. — The Thomas Walker High School (TWHS) Army JROTC Pioneer Battalion academic team will compete in the National Army JROTC Leadership and Academic Bowl for the second year in a row. The team will head to Washington D.C. in June to compete.

Last summer, the Army JROTC Pioneer Battalion at Thomas Walker High School had the privilege of sending an academic team to Washington D.C. to compete in the Army JROTC Leadership and Academic Bowl. Out of an original pool of 1,097 teams, Thomas Walker competed among 540 teams in the nation in round two of online testing. When the dust settled, TWHS was once again in the top 24 teams in the nation earning another shot at the National Title. At last year’s competition,TWHS Cadets placed fifth overall, losing in the playoffs by a margin of only five points.

The team was ecstatic to find out last week that they had earned another shot at the National Championship, as they again placed among the top 24 teams in the nation. They are among only four teams that will be returning from last year.

The first two rounds of testing consisted of general academic material, such as math, science, and English, with a few questions on current events and JROTC curriculum. The number of teams participating this year was similar to the number who participated last year, with over 1,000 teams in the first round, and half of them advancing to the second test.

The Thomas Walker Army JROTC team is looking forward to seeing many familiar faces this year. Campbell County High School in Tennessee, their rivals in regional JROTC competitions, will be sending a team as well. They will also be facing the team that eliminated them in the quarterfinal round of competition last year, Rockledge High School of Rockledge, Florida.

Perhaps more than any of the other teams, The TWHS cadets look forward to meeting with and competing against Lowell High School of San Francisco, California. Over the course of the competition last summer, the members of the two teams became good friends. Thomas Walker was the only team to defeat Lowell in the first round of competition, though Lowell went on to place second overall.

Terry Welch, the principal at Thomas Walker High School, said that he “hopes this will start a tradition of returning to compete in the coming years.”

The Academic Team from Thomas Walker is comprised of cadets Brittany Brashear, Austin Rigdon, Carra Livesay, and Stephen Bost. They are hoping to use the experience they gained last summer to place even higher at this year’s National Championship.

“This is an outstanding achievement for our JROTC program and for the Cadets. We are competing against schools that have 2,000 students and state of the art facilities,” said LTC (Ret) Mark Caruso, the Senior Army Instructor at TWHS.

“Our school and our program may be small, but our cadets have proven to Cadet Command that we are just as good as any school in the nation,” said MSG (Ret) Rodger Moore, JROTC Instructor at TWHS.

MSG Moore added, “This team has overcome many challenges and worked very hard to attain the privilege of attending this competition. They knew from last summer that returning for a second try at the National Championship would not be easy to achieve; but well within their grasp with hard work and determination.”

The team will spend the next few months preparing by doing everything from taking SAT practice tests to reading Shakespearean literature in an effort to bring home the National Army JROTC Academic Bowl First Place Trophy.