Colts Neck HS NJROTC recognized Nationally

Colts Neck Township has gained a bit of notoriety over the years through some notable athletes and talented individuals who have excelled in their respective areas. We also have a number of celebrities who call Colts Neck, ‘home'. Over the past few years however, our beautiful township has been gaining some national fame through an unlikely source and many people throughout the nation have come to associate the name ‘Colts Neck’ with outstanding achievement and superior competitive abilities. Who is this mystery group spreading the word about our great little haven in New Jersey? Why, it’s the Navy Junior ROTC (NJROTC) Unit at Colts Neck High School.

Colts Neck High School (CNHS) Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (NJROTC) has been recognized as a Distinguished Unit with Academic Honors for the past nine consecutive years. Over the past two years, the CNHS Unit has been recognized as the Most Outstanding Unit in its NJROTC area - Area 4. Area 4 is comprised of 57 Navy Units located in the northeast United States, from Maine south through Delaware and west through Pennsylvania. It also includes several units overseas in Spain and Italy.

Once it was recognized as Most Outstanding in its’ home area, Colts Neck High School NJROTC was nominated to a national committee to be ranked among the eleven Most Outstanding NJROTC Units from across the nation. For the past two years, CNHS NJROTC has been ranked as the #2 NJROTC Unit out of the 614 units around the world.

CNHS NJROTC has achieved this success through the determination and commitment of its students (known as cadets), its instructors (Major Greg Penczak, Master Chief Petty Officer Dave Loring, and Master Chief Petty Officer Mike Dunkin), and the many parents of cadets supporting the unit through its PTSO Parents Club. In addition, the support of the Freehold Regional High School District and CNHS Administration; the outstanding education offered by the CNHS Faculty; and the hard work of all the support personnel at CNHS – secretaries and custodians – has made this all possible. The synergy among all these people has allowed the cadets of CNHS NJROTC to enjoy great unit and personal success.

In order to earn Most Outstanding Unit in Area 4 and 2nd in the nation, CNHS NJROTC Cadets have worked hard. The 185 CNHS Cadets perform an average of 10,000 hours of community services annually. They support hundreds of events by proudly presenting our nation’s colors, performing drill exhibitions, reading to students during ‘Read Across America’, helping teach pre-school children about bicycle safety, raise funds for St. Jude’s Hospital, just to name a few. Cadets also support the annual Relay for Life fundraising event, multiple Veterans Day ceremonies including our hometown’s, and Memorial Day activities throughout the Freehold Regional High School District. They march in numerous parades, plant trees with The Nature Conservancy to help our water stay clean, build oyster castles along the Jersey Shore to maintain our shoreline, and clean our beaches. The list goes on and on.

In addition to all of the community service, CNHS NJROTC Cadets work hard to excel in NJROTC competitive activities. CNHS NJROTC has championship drill, orienteering, athletic, academic, robotics, and cyber security teams. All of these teams compete at the national level requiring extensive travel and are self-supporting (not provided for in the FRHSD budget).

Over the past four consecutive years, CNHS NJROTC has claimed the title of Area 4 Academic, Athletic, and Drill Champions. Earning this title qualified CNHS to compete at the NJROTC National Academic, Athletic, and Drill Championship at Pensacola Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida. Forty CNHS cadets traveled to Pensacola in April 2017 to compete for the national championship with 24 of the best NJROTC Units from across the nation. CNHS finished overall 10th Place with a 3rd place finish in athletics, 7th in academics, and 13th in drill.

NJROTC Headquarters designed the ‘Navy Nationals’ as a test that demonstrates the overall strength of its units. Competition rules eliminate the opportunity for units to simply bring only their smartest, fastest, strongest, and best drill cadets. Instead, units are limited to forty (40) competing cadets out of their overall numbers, so every unit’s cadets must compete in more than one activity. Fifteen cadets must compete in academics – a one hour, 100 question, multiple-choice test on the Naval Science curriculum and current events. Eight girls and eight boys must compete in max curl-ups, max push-ups, and a 100 yard dash relay; and four girls with four boys compete in an 8x220 relay in athletic team competition. The five drill events require between twenty and thirty of the cadets to demonstrate excellence in drill. Finally, all competing units must have all of their competing cadets stand inspection with their unit which requires every cadet to be totally ‘squared away’ in appearance and basic military knowledge. This competition concept supports the NJROTC’s overall mission of creating well rounded, self-disciplined, academically and athletically strong young men and women who will be outstanding citizens of our great nation.

CNHS finished 3rd in athletics at the Navy National Championship with superior efforts from many of its girls and boys. Curl-ups and push-ups are performed to a recorded cadence that requires competitors to complete 50 repetitions per minute. In curl-ups competition, Cadet Nicole Dado completed 257 curl-ups without stopping (6th in the nation) and Cadet Sarah Heeb completed 237 (10th in the nation). In push-ups, Cadet Richard Kemble completed 122 without stopping (4th in the nation), Cadet Kyle McElligott completed 114 (9th in the nation), and Cadet Jaime Prestigiacomo completed 75 (9th in the nation).

CNHS Cadets continued their athletic dominance a month later at the inaugural JROTC Fitness Challenge Championship in Daytona Beach, Florida. CNHS sent two teams to this event. The two teams finished 2nd and 4th in the nation. The team finishing in 2nd actually tied for first and fell to second place on a tie-breaker. Cadet standouts included Owen Keusch and Jaime Prestigiacomo, who captured the title of Most Physically Fit Male and Female, respectively, and Jason Kauffman, who captured 1st Place in the seated power throw competition. Jason beat his closest competitor by over six feet!

Long hours of hard work throughout the school year brought CNHS this success. The drill, athletic, and academic team members arrive at CNHS at 7 AM every morning to practice for an hour or more prior to the commencement of the school day. Practices start in August and, at the request of the cadets, continue until the last day of classes in June. A long schedule but the cadets make life-long friends and love what they are doing. The best part of the training is that the cadets are actually in charge. Cadet leaders plan and execute the training under the guidance of the instructors. The captain of a team in NJROTC is exactly that – the one in charge. He or she is expected to run practices, schedule training, and focus on eliminating weaknesses. What better way to teach leadership than to have the young person actually doing it? However, all team members have a voice and are encouraged to be creative in all areas. Of course, military courtesy and professionalism is expected among all team members in all their personal dealings.

CNHS’s Orienteering Team has been the Area 4 Champions for 8 consecutive years. It has finished in the top ten nationally every year and finished 8th in the nation this past February competing in Georgia. This team’s members also start training every August and compete in about 10 competitions annually up and down the east coast in addition to the national championship. The NJROTC National Championship is held annually in February in different locations around the USA (next year’s is scheduled for Florida). CNHS Orienteering Team members have traveled to California, Washington, Illinois, and more, spreading the good news about Colts Neck. Parents who accompanied the team at last year’s championship reported hearing students from schools in Texas saying ‘that’s Colts Neck.’ Our cadets like hearing that being said about them.

The CNHS NJROTC Academic Team competes in both JROTC and non-JROTC Competitions throughout the year. The team has been moving up in the standings but it’s a steep hill to climb competing against many of the very strongest academic private and public schools in our area. Still, CNHS Cadets plod on, continuing to make strides and gaining the respect of fellow competitors. The team sponsors a non-JROTC competition annually at CNHS titled the Autumnal Equinox Challenge. This competition has attracted academic teams from throughout New Jersey and is one of the first competitions offered each year.

There is much more going on at CNHS NJROTC – underwater robotics in the Sea Perch Program and cyber security training in the Cyber Patriot competition program. Cadets are focused on success at the unit and individual levels and proud to hear the name Colts Neck being called for honors all across our nation and in every activity.

CNHS NJROTC’s unit success has fostered outstanding success for our individual cadets who take advantage of the opportunities offered to them. Over the past eight years, cadets have been awarded an amazing $5,180,000.00 in ROTC Scholarships to major universities throughout America, including Yale University. Additionally, cadets have been offered $1,000,000.00 in appointments to all three of our nation’s military academies. These appointments and ROTC Scholarships are in addition to all of the grants, academic and athletic scholarships that CNHS NJROTC Cadets have also earned for their outstanding performance at Colts Neck High School. For the 2016-2017 school year alone, NJROTC Graduating Cadets (a class of 41) were offered over five million dollars for their undergraduate college studies. Three of our female graduates received full athletic scholarship and one male received a full academic scholarship for STEM studies.

As mentioned earlier, this outcome is the result of the synergy achieved between the cadets’ regular high school curriculum studies and their pride in belonging to the CNHS NJROTC Unit. Major Penczak, Senior Naval Science Instructor at CNHS, stated, “I like to think of Navy JROTC as a sharpening stone that hones the fine edge placed on our students by the faculty at Colts Neck High School. Our cadets truly have the best of everything – outstanding classes from dedicated teachers, support from our administrators, a PTSO Parents Club that works tirelessly to support the NJROTC’s activities, and three retired military instructors dedicated to our unit’s and cadets’ success. A winning combination for any student in America."

So, Colts Neck Township is gaining notoriety from the success of its’ NJROTC Unit and its’ cadets. We have alumni at Yale University, Villanova University, University of San Diego, Penn State, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, and more. Our college graduates are attorneys, nuclear engineers training US Sailors about reactors on US Navy Ships, and are working for the New York Mets, just to name a few. Many of our graduates return to CNHS to speak to cadets presently in the program and tell them the positive impact NJROTC had on their lives after high school. Meanwhile, the unit continues to march and is working to achieve more victories and maintain its status as one of the best NJROTC’s in the world. The CNHS NJROTC enjoys being ranked second out of 614 units worldwide but would really like to hear, ‘Colts Neck is number one!’ The unit is working on next year already.