Looks like Fresno Unified student trustee Joshua Camarillo will be heading out of state for college after he graduates this year from Edison High School. Camarillo is one of six Valley high school students to be nominated by U.S. Rep. Jim Costa (D-Fresno) to attend one of the nation’s military academies.

And Camarillo, who has a 4.19 grade-point average, is captain of his leadership class at Edison and is on the school’s swim and water polo teams, could have choices — Costa nominated him for both the U.S. Air Force Academy and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

At this point, he told GV Wire℠ on Wednesday morning, he’s leaning toward the Air Force Academy, which is in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

He’ll still need to receive an offer of appointment from either West Point or the Air Force Academy — or both — but Camarillo said he feels “very fortunate” that he received a principal nomination from Costa. A principal nomination is like a “golden ticket” (think Willy Wonka) for admission, he said.

UPDATE: Camarillo said he received a phone call Wednesday afternoon from Costa’s office with the news that he has been accepted by the Air Force Academy. “I will be getting my letter of appointment sometime this week!” he said in a text message, adding that he is “super excited.”

Costa’s other nominees are Thomas Cox, a senior at San Joaquin Memorial High School who is in the top third of his class (U.S. Naval Academy); Justin Bowe, a senior at Minarets Charter High School in Madera County with a 4.16 GPA (West Point); Quaiden Copher, a senior at Liberty High School in Madera County with a 4.27 GPA (U.S. Naval Academy); Scott Martinez, a senior at Madera High School with a 4.64 GPA (U.S. Air Force Academy and U.S. Naval Academy); and Logan McIntosh, a senior at Merced High School with a 4.21 GPA (U.S. Air Force Academy and U.S. Naval Academy).

Nancy Price

School Zone

Academic Decathlon Goes Virtual

Tune in at 6 p.m. Saturday for the Super Quiz event of the 39th annual Fresno County Academic Decathlon, where the county’s biggest high school brains vie for scholarships and trophies, not to mention bragging rights.

The Super Quiz, which is usually held in a high school gym with raucous fans cheering on their school teams, had to go virtual this year because of  the pandemic, but there are lots of places to catch the action (CMAC 2 Edu Channel, Comcast Xfinity Channel 94, AT&T Uverse Channel 99 and the CMAC website: https://cmac.tv/edu/). This year’s theme is “The Cold War,” and 23 teams will be competing.

The decathlon also includes students competing on 10 examinations: art, music, language and literature, mathematics, economics, science, social science, speech, interview, and essay. Unlike past years, the results from the Super Quiz and other decathlon events will not be available after the Super Quiz. You’ll need to tune in at 6 p.m. Tuesday on CMAC.

The winning team will represent Fresno County at the Virtual California State Decathlon March 25-28.

In recent years the county championship has pretty much come down to a battle between University High School, which has claimed the top prize in five of the past seven years, and Edison High, which has won two championships since 2014. University High won the county decathlon in 2020.