Milam wins EAST competition
GENTRY — Clancy Milam, a senior at Gentry High School participating in the EAST Initiative, won the EAST Tech Support Olympiad competition on Friday.
“EAST is education accelerated by service and technology,” according to the EAST Initiative website. The initiative assists schools and communities by providing technology and encouraging critical thinking and creative problem-solving. The Initiative also encourages lifelong learning and community service.
“In addition to establishing unique environments in schools and offering technical support, EAST also provides powerful technology training both to students and educators, including professional development focusing on integrating technology into any classroom, regardless of subject,” the EAST website says.
“The Tech Support Olympiad is a competition that I really enjoy,” Milam said, “because it requires a lot of computer knowledge, along with being able to critically think around problems. This year, around three hundred people competed in three rounds, with the next round being more difficult than the last.”
Milan said the first two rounds didn’t seem that difficult to him, but the third round was a challenge.
“When I looked at the third round, I was completely lost. I spent night and day working on this competition, and after three days, I finally got the answer,” he said.
“However, leading up to me winning, I was constantly trying to figure out how I could have messed up and what I could have missed during the competition. This kind of tediousness, though, helped me find all the information to win, and all that I have learned in EAST allowed me to figure out what the answer was,” Milan explained.
Patrick Lanford oversees the EAST classroom at the high school and supervises the students as they make use of the technology to solve problems and provide solutions to community problems.