ROD THOMPSON / RTHOMPSON@ STARBULLETIN.COM Academic Decathlon top winners Brian Cama, holding Hilo High's team trophy, and Lincoln Uyeda stood in front of a banner Thursday that the team won in national competition this month. Uyeda won gold and bronze medals, and Cama received two silver medals.

Hilo High scholars excel
at national competition

---

By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

HILO >> When Hilo High senior Lincoln Uyeda got off the plane at the Phoenix airport earlier this month, he had a quick reaction to being in the Arizona desert.

"Wow, cactuses," he thought.

Then he and seven other members of the school's Academic Decathlon team hurried onward to their hotel rooms.

"The only thing I could think of was getting to my studies," Uyeda said.

The nose-to-the-grindstone attitude paid off at the U.S. Academic Decathlon competition April 10-13.

Uyeda won a gold medal in the interview event, which involved Decathlon testers barraging him with questions on subjects like the relationship of sound and light to understanding people. He gained a perfect score.

Teammate Brian Cama, a sophomore, won a silver medal for his knowledge of country-and-western music.

Cama also won a silver medal in the interview, and Uyeda got a bronze in math. Their team came in third in the nation in their division, mid-size schools, and 12th overall.

Decathlon members studied since September for the competition.

Days after Uyeda returned to Hilo from Phoenix, he flew back to the mainland for interviews at universities in New York, Illinois and California. They had already accepted him for enrollment. He was interviewing them to see which offer he would accept.

Uyeda plans to study biomolecular engineering. That means, for example, using DNA to cure diseases.

While Uyeda has an A average at Hilo High, Cama averages a C.

"I'm very lazy," Cama confessed, but it's a claim that doesn't seem to hold up for someone who spent hours learning facts such as who produced Patsy Cline's "Walking After Midnight."

The Decathlon is different, Cama said. "It's not just learning facts. It's competition. It's like a sport for me."

His two silver medals show he's a tough sportsman.

Uyeda goes to college in the fall. Sophomore Cama has Decathlon teams from other states worried. They know he'll probably be back competing against them for two more years.