Academic Masters results

Are you looking for a competition among students to test your knowledge on a subject? There is a way for this to happen! The Academic Masters is a competition that started as a unique approach for the community to highlight and reward academic excellence amongst high school students in Josephine County. The winners each receive a prize in money from the County competition. The competition includes the subjects math, music, English, science, and social studies. This year's competition recently concluded, after taking place over the winter months.

Academic Masters began in 1983. Since then, there have been thirty-seven competitions held. By 1984, at least ten thousand dollars had been donated to the foundation. The organizers have been able to receive more donations since then. Since 1984, about $210,000 has been donated to the program. Each year, more donations are made to Academic Masters by retired members of our community, teachers, principals, businesses, and more.

Participants of Academic Masters are given a test. They must prepare and deliver the best responses they can on the stage. The kinds of questions or prompts they are given vary with the different subjects. Mrs. Connelly, a contributor to the foundation since 1992 and a Grants Pass High School English teacher, runs the English Academic Masters subject at GPHS and has been devising tests to evaluate students’ knowledge of authors, literary elements, literary time periods, and major literary works. There are short answer responses and an essay. She provided The Scroll with an example of a prompt that could be used in the competition: “In a literary work, often known as a foil, possesses traits that emphasize, by contrast or comparison, the distinctive characteristics and qualities of the main character. For example, the ideas or behavior of the minor character might be used to highlight the weaknesses or strengths of the main character. Choose a novel or play in which a minor character serves as foil to a main character. Analyze how the relation to the minor character and the major character illuminates a theme of the work.”

Mrs. Connelly was able to share her personal experience in Academic Masters. She started attending the competition to support her students, and became more involved when she started working with an English teacher that would prepare the English tests for the competition. He later retired, giving Mrs. Connelly the opportunity to accept the responsibility of the position. She said, “When I see our GPHS competitors on stage, I am excited. I am nervous. I am proud. I imagine all the teachers feel this way. It is the students' moment to shine. We, the audience, are there to appreciate and applaud and celebrate all those students. Whether someone walks away with first or fourth, I believe each participant has felt happy to be part of this process.”

Her daughter was able to participate in the competition. She even won two years in a row! She

was able to spend her prize money however she chose. One year, she studied abroad with the money. The next year, she was able to put the money toward a laptop for college.

In this year's Josephine County Academic Masters competition, all the participants but the music competitors presented through a Zoom call. The Grants Pass students did an excellent job! Adam Jenson took first place for music, with the piano. Michael Hendrick won math and this was his second year in a row winning it. Gabriella Favazza earned second place for English. Owen Ledesma earned second place for social studies. Ethan Nelson took fourth place for Science. As a team, North Valley achieved first place, and Grants Pass earned second.

Overall, Academic Masters is a genius foundation made to give students the opportunity to show off their skills in specific subjects. If you go to the Academic Masters website, you can see some more quotes of past participants and be able to remain updated on each year's winners. If you are interested, don’t forget to sign up next year!