On March 10, three teams from the Economics Club competed at the state finals of the Indiana Economics Challenge. Of the three teams, two—Adam Smith 1 and David Ricardo—were first place in their divisions and Avon High School finished second, according to Michelle Foutz, Economics Club sponsor and economics teacher. She said this victory qualifies them for the “regional competition” on April 14 at CHS.

Joe Philleo, member of the Adam Smith 1 team and sophomore, said, “(The Adam Smith 1) team and the David Ricardo team each had a combined score of 360, and we won by a large margin.”

According to Philleo, the state competition consisted of four rounds: three rounds of written tests and one round of oral jeopardy in which the two finalists of each division competed in a buzzer round.

Both Philleo and Foutz were most nervous about the oral jeopardy section of competition.

Foutz said, “Going into (competition), I thought we were strong, but I was (nervous) about the oral jeopardy since the questions in that component are dependent on how quickly you answer. So, anyone could win that. (The members) did a nice job with that.”

Michael Wang, member of the David Ricardo team and freshman, said the members advancing to the regional competition would continue to practice with Foutz, read the AP Macroeconomics and Microeconomics textbooks, and work on practice tests.

Wang said, “I’m really excited about qualifying for regionals, and I’m really confident we can qualify (for the national competition).”

Foutz also added that if the teams won at the regional, they would go to New York City for the national competition.

She said, “I’m very proud of them. I thought they did a great job. I think they all scored extremely well. Even the ones who aren’t advancing did a great job, as well as the freshmen who read the book and taught themselves (economics).”