Samuel Latham was a freshman who was a reserve player on the undefeated state championship soccer team at Madison Academic this past spring.
And while he enjoyed being a part of that team, he earned some recognition and hardware of his own for the school when he won the state championship in Microsoft Office this past spring.
Next week, he will travel to Orlando, Fla., to represent the state and compete in the National Microsoft Office championship.
The competition is one that allows students to show their abilities in all of the software programs in Microsoft Office – Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Students who compete are given 50 minutes to complete a list of tasks.
“Samuel got a perfect score on his test, and I’ve had that happen a few times before but no one has ever won the state championship from Madison,” said Gary Carroll, Latham’s teacher. “At every level, you may have multiple people finish with a perfect score, so they use time to determine a tiebreaker.
“If two people have a perfect score and one finishes in 38 minutes and the other in 37, the one who finished in 37 would be the winner.”
Latham said he’s looking forward to the trip to Florida next week and competing for the national championship – which would be a first for Madison if he were to win.
He said he continues to work on his skills in all three programs to stay in form to compete at a national level.
Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news
