The Russell County High School Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps recently received a $500 donation from VFW Post 7698 toward their trip to Kansas City, Kan., next month for the Area 9 Academic, Physical Fitness and Drill Competition Championships.

Phillip Anderson with the VFW presented the donation to the NJROTC Tuesday morning.

“We certainly appreciate it and it will help us immensely on our trip to Kansas City,” said Bob King, NJROTC’ senior instructor.

The championships will take place on Saturday, Feb. 21 at Shawnee Mission High School, according to King.

“We’ll have 15 cadets compete in a 100 question academic test that covers the entire NJROTC curriculum,” he said. “Then we have eight girls and eight boys that compete in the sit-ups and push-ups competition and four girls and four boys running a 120-yard relay race and then eight girls and eight boys run a 100-yard relay race for athletics.”

King also said there would be five different drill competitions in Kansas City as well for the cadets, colorguard, armed and unarmed basic drill and armed and unarmed exhibition drill.

“The top three schools in Kansas City will be selected to attend the Navy national drill meet in April in Pensacola, Florida,” he said.

Last year, the NJROTC placed second in the Area 9 Championships and they only took two teams from each area to nationals.

“Our real goal is to go out there and win it but we’ll take third if we have to,” King said. “We feel like we’ve got a good chance.”

The NJROTC qualified to go to Kansas City by finishing second at the Area 9 Regional Qualifier in Wilson Central High School in Lebanon, Tenn.

“We finished first in academics there and our team took top five high schools in individual competitions and we had a first and second in armed and unarmed basic drill there,” he said.

King said his cadets were confident that they could compete with the other schools next month in Kansas City.

King said that 33 total cadets from the high school would be heading to Area 9 championshps next month.

While in Missouri, the cadets will visit Whiteman Air Force Base in Knob Noster to practice and take several guided base tours.

If anyone would like to make a contribution to the Russell County High School NJROTC to help fund the trip contact Bob King at 270-858-2120 or NJROTC Booster Club President Bobby Grider at 270-343-4870.