Miles Lima recently earned top honors at World Scholar’s Cup Tournament of Champions.
The Sierra High junior along with Shruti Shrestha of Nepal were both high achievers in the Scholar’s Challenge, which had over 1,200 students competing in the senior division at the event held at Yale University.
According to Lima, this was the first time two students earned the Jac Khor Award, which goes to the highest score on this multiple-choice testing event.
“It was an absolutely incredible experience,” he said. “The way that the World Scholars Cup brings together so many students of different backgrounds and cultures, yet fosters such a strong environment of unity and togetherness, is both humbling and inspiring.
“I believe that all students should have access to the opportunity to participate.”
Abhimanyu Nair, who is also an SHS junior, earned ninth individually in debate while his team scored eighth in the world competition.
SHS qualified for the recent event after the 11-member local team had a strong showing in the World Scholar’s Cup global round in Ljubljana, Slovenia, back in July.
The SHS team has twice gone abroad for the World Scholar’s Cup in recent years, with Lima being influenced in establishing Manteca Scholars, Inc., a nonprofit organization aimed at the facilitation of academic and enrichment programs for students of this community.
Manteca Scholars, Inc. primarily coordinates and oversees initiatives that our school district can’t fund due to legal or logistical parameters, and seeks to act as a legal framework for the handling of public donations and grants.
“It was founded specifically for SHS’s World Scholars Cup endeavors, but was expanded to encompass other programs in similar situations,” he said.
Manteca Scholars, Inc. currently consists of 10 programs and continues to grow with 100-plus members.
“Though we had to pay for the WSC championship trip out-of-pocket this time – hopefully for the last time – Manteca Scholars, Inc. did coordinate all the logistics.
“We are currently in the process of fundraising and searching for grants and sponsorships,” Lima added.
