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Students from Lincoln and Jesuit high schools returned to Portland with plenty to be proud of after earning top scores in the national We the People and Mock Trial competitions.

Jesuit鈥檚 Mock Trial team returned from Albuquerque, N.M., after a three-day run at the national title. Ultimately, the team came in 12^th in the nation, which coach Paul Hogan, the school鈥檚 Mock Trial coach and academic vice principal, considers an impressive standing for a team that鈥檚 just five years old.

鈥淭he beauty of Mock Trial is that it鈥檚 the students doing all the work: the five-minute arguments delivered from memory, the penetrating questions, the clever replies, the objections and responses to objections,鈥� Hogan said. 鈥淔or the two hours of each trial, students cannot even make eye contact with a coach or they are disqualified.鈥�

The national competition featured the state champions from 42 states and Guam, South Korea and the North Mariana Islands. Hogan said the competition poised a case twice as complex as the regional/state case, with half the time to prepare. The teams prepare for both prosecution and defense. And each student played multiple roles鈥攐peners and closers, direct and cross-examiners, witnesses and timers.

鈥淚n the end, the National Mock Trial Championship was not about winning cases, but about making new friendships, deepening old ones and creating indelible memories,鈥� Hogan said, adding the team concluding its trip by hiking Albuquerque鈥檚 Sandia Peak.

In late April, Lincoln High School won the national We the People competition, the event鈥檚 25^th anniversary. Held in Washington, D.C., the three-day competition on the Constitution and Bill of Rights tested students on constitutional topics before panels of judges.

Lincoln beat classes from 47 states, the District of Columbia and the Northern Mariana Islands. During the competition, students demonstrated their knowledge of the Constitution before simulated congressional committees made up of state supreme court judges, constitutional scholars, lawyers, public officials and We the People alumni.