|
PRESS RELEASE SHS Team Heads to state "Knowledge Bowl" Championship! For more information, contact: Coach
Holloway
Sultan High School's Knowledge Bowl team will be competing in the Washington State Knowledge Bowl championship on Saturday, March 26, in Camas, WA. As a result of their outstanding performance in the Ferndale regional tournament on Tuesday, February 8, the team and their coach, Rick "Conan" Holloway, have earned the privilege of representing their school, their district, and their community at the state level. "This is an exciting thing!" remarked Holloway on the morning after the regional success. "We celebrate the achievement of these students. They are eager to compete and have shown commitment to the sport and to their team." Knowledge Bowl, a "sport for the mind," involves fast-paced thinking and teamwork. It is an interdisciplinary academic contest that originated in Durango, CO, in 1978. Educational Service Districts (ESD's) in Washington have held regional tournaments for the past two decades and in 1983 added a statewide tournament. A Knowledge Bowl typically includes a series of three oral rounds plus one written round of 60 questions. Teams compete in a "Jeopardy" TV show fashion during the oral rounds, activating electronic buzzers to indicate they wish to answer. "Buzzer strategy is key," noted one team member. "You have to beat the other teams to the punch, but you can't hit too soon or you won't hear the entire question." ESD 189, which supports numerous schools in northwestern Washington, sponsored the regional competition. SHS team members Vern Nelson, Karsten Thot, David Schmidt, and Laura Fox answered remarkably tough questions on a variety of topics, including geography, literature, physics, grammar, current events, mathematics, government, and even health and folklore, to earn their slot at the state championship. For the next five weeks, the Sultan High team—joined by Gina Korn as alternate—will continue to prepare for the March 26 tournament by completing weekly crossword puzzles of more than 100 questions, which Coach Conan creates for them. "These puzzles are great," said one student, "because they're not only fun but they really do help us practice."
|