Oak Harbor High School’s Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps was the only school from the state of Washington to compete recently at the National Invitational Drill Meet held at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.

The competition took place April 9 and consisted of armed and unarmed drill teams, color guard and individual and special exhibition drills.

All Oak Harbor teams did well in the competition, according to instructor Bill Thiel, who shared these results at the Navy League meeting last week.

Oak Harbor’s armed drill team took seventh place out of 12 teams and the unarmed drill team took fourth place out of 12. Color guard one placed tenth out of 20 and color guard two placed eighth out of 20.

In the individual and special exhibitions, c/SCPO Chisum Sifford was seventh out of 14.

Sifford also placed second out of 80 competitors in the armed drill down. In the unarmed drill down, c/Lt. Jami Zuber came in third out of 110 competitors.

When the 26 cadets and six chaperones from Oak Harbor weren’t practicing or competing, they found the time to visit the Garden of the Gods, a national natural landmark in Colorado Springs, and the Olympic Training Center.

Two former OHHS graduates, Thomas Chandler and Chris Olson, gave the group a personalized tour of the Air Force Academy.