Winners Advance to Final in "Olympics of the Mind" Competition

NAPERVILLE, Ill - Fourteen high school students were awarded 18 gold medals in the 40th annual DuPage County Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technical and Scientific Olympics competition, also known as ACT-SO, on Sunday, March 17th. They’ll now advance to the national final to compete with other students from around the nation in the categories of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), Humanities, and Visual and Performing Arts. This year’s theme was “40 Years: Achievers Changing the World.”

Bolingbrook High School had the highest number of students awarded medals at this year’s local competition at 10, followed by Neuqua Valley High School which had seven medalists. Metea Valley High School had one student, junior Maya S. Williams, win three gold medals, the highest number possible, as a first-time competitor at the high school level.

The winners advancing to the national competition are (listed by school):

Tiffany Fitzpatrick, Belmont Christian School

Justin Bolden, Eva Martinez, Erica Neal, Bryson Rivers, Jordan Sharber, and Avia Wideman, Bolingbrook High School

Zainab Salako, Islamic Foundation School

Maya S. Williams, Metea Valley High School

Ethan Covington, Imani Porter and Micah Thigpen, Neuqua Valley High School

LaNiece Dennis and Erik Imathiu-Jones, Providence St. Mel School

High School Gold Medalists (Pictured Left to Right) Front Row: Justin Bolden, Ethan Covington, Micah Thigpen, Bryson Rivers, Erik Imathiu-Jones

Back Row: Jordan Sharber, Tiffany Fitzpatrick, Imani Porter, Zainab Salako, Erica Neal, Avia Wideman, LaNiece Dennis, Eva Martinez, Maya Williams

The national competition will be held in Detroit, Mich., July 18-21, ahead of the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

In 2018, DuPage County ACT-SO competitors won nine medals nationally, six of them were gold and seven of them in the STEM category. “ACT-SO's partnership with the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory has elevated the level of projects in the STEM category,” according to DuPage County ACT-SO Co-chair Thomas Reed.

“The Argonne ACT-SO High School Research program has grown over the past five years with a goal to encourage students to pursue careers in STEM. [We have] students from our first year of the partnership entering graduate school and medical school this academic year,” said Reed. They are currently searching for similar partnerships for the other competition category areas of Performing and Visual Arts, Humanities, and Business, according to Reed.

DuPage County ACT-SO also celebrated the fifth year of its Jr. ACT-SO program in which middle school students compete in a team format to build their research, collaboration, teamwork and public speaking skills.

The DuPage County ACT-SO program includes students in DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Will, and parts of Cook County. ACT-SO is a major youth initiative of the NAACP, created by well-known Chicago journalist, Vernon Jarrett.

To learn more about DuPage County ACT-SO please visit dupageactso.wildapricot.org.