On November 7, the Parkway High School Cyber Patriots earned a place in the Top 24 of over 200 high schools from 44 states, South Korea, and Japan in the Air Force Association’s Cyber Patriot II Competition. This competition was the largest live high school cyber defense competition ever staged. “This is a dramatic expansion of the CyberPatriot competition that began last year as an AFA initiative to promote student career interest in cyber security and other science, technology, education and mathematics career fields,” said Sandy Schlitt, Vice Chairman of the Board for Aerospace Education in a recent press release about the competition. On November 7, the entire field of 200‐plus teams participating in CyberPatriot II stepped up to their computers, typed in a password and began a race to the finish to solve a series of cyber defense problems within a unique computer program pioneered by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). Teams had up to six hours to correct 100 percent of the vulnerabilities in a virtual network and were ranked according to their success and speed with the SAIC system tracking their progress.

The Parkway team, led by MSgt O’Brien, consisted of five sophomores: Cadets Rebecca Booth, Ethan Garcie, Allison Grantham, Travis Lowery, and Sterling Williams.

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