These awards were specifically won at an Academic Decathlon competition, a Vocational Industrialist Clubs of America (VICA) competition, both on Feb. 5; Delta College's Math, Science and Engineering Day on Feb. 24, and the Speech and Debate team's league competition on Feb. 26.
At the Academic Decathlon competition for San Joaquin County, 17 schools competed in 10 different subjects including math, science, social studies, language and literature, music, art, interview, speech, essay and super quiz.
Students of the Academic Decathlon class, 16 in all, were chosen from three categories where nine of the 16 become starters. These categories are varsity, scholastic and honors. In order to qualify for varsity the students must have an unweighted grade point average (GPA) less than 3.0. Those who qualify for the scholastic category have an unweighted GPA greater than or equal to 3.0 but less than or equal to 3.75. The highest category is the honors category which includes students with an unweighted GPA greater than 3.75.
Bear Creek's Academic Decathlon team placed second in the San Joaquin County competition. Junior Eric Mah, who placed fifth of 150 competitors and received a $100 savings bond, was Bear Creek's highest scorer.
"Winning second place overall at the competition was a great achievement for the team since we worked all year to get to that point," Mah said.
Academic Decathlon adviser Lynda Farrar was content with the outcome of the competition after the semester-long preparation.
"We had so many medals, the bulletin announcers wouldn't read them," Farrar said.
The team won a total of 29 medals across all ten events; nine of the medals were gold.
On the same day of the Academic Decathlon competition, VICA's drafting and automotive teams competed and won a total of 17 medals. Those who medaled have the chance of competing at the VICA state competition at San Bernadino, Calif., on the weekend of April 15.Returning state gold medalist senior Jonathan Brooks has yet another chance of winning the gold in the AutoCAD drafting event.
"Although I won silver in the Regionals, I believe I have a great chance to achieve another gold medal in the AutoCAD event at state this year," Brooks said.
VICA adviser Roger Crane was very excited at the VICA Regional competition.
"It gets really exciting when I see their [students] hands tremble as they receive their medals," Crane said.
At Delta College's Engineering, Math and Science Challenge competition Bear Creek displayed a decent effort with teams winning medals in all four challenges. The challenges included the construction of a tower of popsicle sticks, an extrapolation of rubber bands and weights, a microbiology poster on restaurant safety and typical math problems.
Bear Creek's speech and debate team also did well in events such as dramatic interpretation, humorous interpretation, congress, impromptu and oratorical interpretation.
The highlights include junior Bronche Taylor and senior Mario McCarn receiving several first place awards throughout the competition and senior Nicole Rocero and senior Marlisa Lopez also winning many first places.
Taylor and McCarn compete as a duo and will have the opportunity to compete at the state qualifications. Taylor also has a chance of winning in the category of original prose of poetry with his piece "Solomon's Temple." He may only be able to compete in original prose of poetry if he is unable to compete in the duo because one can only compete in one type of event at the state level.
"I think we'll make it all the way to state," Taylor said. "We have a lot of potential."
Although Taylor and McCarn are a great duo, Rocero and Lopez, are allowed to skip the state qualifications because of their success in past competitions.
"I feel like I could finally exhale, because I have been holding my breath so long waiting for this opportunity," Rocero said. "It makes me feel proud of myself and of Marlisa because this is evidence of our belief in one another, our hard work and our strength."