The Academic Team won the Horry County championship tournament for the 5th consecutive time in November.  They have won every year since 2017– except for the 2020-2022 school year when there was no competition.

Academic Team Advisor Ms. Cynthia Lehr attributes the team’s success to the student’s attitude and work ethic. 

“My students, it’s all them,” she said. “ They choose to go to more tournaments, they choose to practice all year even though we could have stopped. So, it’s purely their work and dedication. And I’m just along for the ride.” 

The team practices twice a week. They study packets of trivia questions from the company that makes the questions for the competition and play trivia games. 

“It’s a lot of fun because I also learn just listening to or reading the questions for them,”  Ms. Lehr said. 

After a six-week preparation, the students compete against teams from Horry County High schools. The atmosphere of the tournament is competitive, according to the team members. 

“I enjoy the competitiveness,” Freshman Keller Dowdy said. “It feels chaotic, but… fun,” 

This year, six out of the ten members are seniors. Ms. Lehr encourages current members to recruit new members for next year. However, she is not worried about future tournaments. 

“I’m okay if we even slide back to the bottom, because how fun can it be for the county for us to always be winning?”  Ms. Lehr said.