High school junior ROTC members: participated in the War Eagle Invitational high school competition on Saturday in various categories such as drill and ceremonies and a physical fitness test. JD Schein / ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
Auburn University Army ROTC hosted the War Eagle Invitational High School Competition Saturday, which involved a physical training contest, air rifle marksmanship events and drill and ceremonies.
“We invite junior ROTC high school programs to come up and compete in drill and ceremonies, air rifle marksmanship and physical fitness,” said Master Sgt. Ron Wheeler, senior military science instructor for Army ROTC.
Wheeler said they took the standard Army PT test, which is a 2 mile run, as many sit-ups as they can do in 10 minutes and as many push-ups as they can do in 10 minutes.
Lt. Col. Jon Segars, professor of military science for Army ROTC and battalion commander for the unit itself, was also at the competition.
He said there are several different versions of drill and ceremonies.
“We’ve got a competition that is strictly military, we’ve got a demilitarized competition that is more like a drill team that you see here at any athletic event,” Segars said.
Segars said there was also a color guard competition.
High school junior ROTC members
Wheeler said they’ve been doing it annually for about 18 years, and it is a good experience for the high school students.
Segars agreed with Wheeler and said the competition was a good experience for high school students.
Maj. Wayne Hicks, senior Army instructor at Stanhope-Elmore High School said the event had both armed and unarmed competitions, regulation military drill and the chance to come up with their own routines.
“The kids get a good chance to do things by the book, and they get to be very creative in what they do,” Hicks said.
He said because his school is on a block schedule, his students spend 96 minutes a day getting ready for this type of competition.
Hicks has participated in the competition for the past 14 years.
He said it is a good experience for the students to be exposed to a university to help them decide if they want to go to college, and it gives them the chance to interact with students from other programs.
“It exposes them to college level senior ROTC cadets, and it also showcases our campus and our program in hopes that they will continue the ROTC training,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler said it allows them to compete against teams from Louisiana and Georgia, who they might not otherwise interact with.
“Not only does it allow them to compete against other high schools, but it allows them to see what a college life is all about and what our college students and cadets here do, because a lot of them will be in their shoes next year or the year after, so it is a great experience for everybody,” Segars said.
Wheeler said the competition went well, but they were thrown off by the rain.
He said the competition was forced to be more spread out, because certain events had to be held in different locations because of the weather.
“The weather hindered us a little bit in the morning, but the storm blew through here and the day turned out very nice,” Segars said.
Segars said this was his first year to be involved with the high school competition.
He said he did not know of any other event like this of this size in this part of the United States.
Segars said he thought all of the high schools did pretty well.
“You’ve got several different events going, so there will be schools that are stronger in some events and some that are stronger in others,”
Segars said. “It is hard to say right now exactly what’s going to happen with the results, but I know at the end of the day we’ve got 52 or 54 different awards we are giving out, so chances are every school is going to be successful in something.”
Segars said trophies and awards for the top three finishers in the individual and team events in the competition were given out that afternoon.
Segars said the competition is a fundraising event for next year’s competition.
According to http://www.auburn.edu/academic/rotc/arotc/, Kadettes are the auxiliary hostesses for the Auburn Army ROTC.
Enterprise High School came in first in the overall competition, while Wetumpka High School came in second and Carroll High School came in third.
