Students study up for contest
Jennifer Brookens — Staff WriterArticle Photos
SWEA CITY - The small group of students gave rapid-fire answers: D-Day, Madonna and Bob Saget.
Well, two out of three ain't bad.
The questions were, "What was the code name for June 6, 1944?" "Who was known as the 'Material Girl' of the 1980s?" and "Which actor said the famous line, 'Frankly Scarlet, I don't give a damn.'" (Clark Gable, NOT Bob Saget!)
On Saturday, the North Sentral Kossuth students will travel to Garner-Hayfield High School in Garner, Iowa, to compete in what is being called "The Humanities Challenge," a slightly different take on the average high school quiz bowls.
"It will be run like a regular quiz bowl, but there are no math and science questions," said Brooks Walter, a social studies teacher helping prepare the students. "So this is right up my alley."
"It's the first of what we hope will become an annual event," said Kent Mick, a teacher at Garner-Hayfield High School who is organizing the event. "It's a hybrid of the regular high school or college bowl but it is more focused on the humanities, like art, music, social studies, literature and history. In schools, there's a great deal of emphasis on math and science. But there's importance in the humanities too; we know Oppenheimer made the atomic bomb, but it was a politician who decided to use it."
Mick managed to organize the event in about six months.
Another difference about this quiz bowl is the emphasis on working as a team. While there are still individual questions, there will be chances for the team of five to work together for an answer.
"It's not based so much on speed, but on teamwork," Mick said.
But some old habits may be hard to break, as some of the students from North Sentral Kossuth were still smacking their "buzzers" on the desk whenever they were ready to answer. The students worked on 120 questions that were given as samples.
"I'm feeling pretty good about this," Walter said following practice with the students Thursday morning, "We got more than half of them right."
While the competition is open to all high school grades, only juniors and seniors will compete from North Sentral Kossuth.
"I just like answering questions, and chances to hang out with this guy," said senior Devin Bollig of Fenton as he elbowed Walter after the practice session.
"I like the quiz bowls because you have to know facts," said senior Jessica Jordal of Ledyard. "I like to know facts, because I want to be a historian."
"I took part in quiz bowls in middle school," added Michael Logemann, a junior from Ledyard. "It's just something I like to do."
Mick said about eight northern Iowa high schools were expected to participate in the event. Along with North Sentral Kossuth and Gardner-Hayfield, North Iowa High School in Buffalo Center, Bishop Garrigan of Algona and West Hancock (Britt) also are scheduled to attend.
"We're hoping that everyone will have a good time," Mick said. "We think it will be good, friendly competition, but also academic competition."
