Henderson County Students Head to Quiz Bowl in Atlanta

Summer break may have just began for students here in Henderson County, but a group of Henderson County High School students are headed to Atlanta, Georgia May 25-27 to compete against the best high schools in the country in America’s most rigorous scholastic competition, the High School National Championship Tournament.

The HCHS team is coached by Brian Sullivan. Sullivan started as an Assistant Coach in 2004 and became the academic team’s Head Coach in Fall 2009. Students on the team include Luke Payne, Riley Lovell, DJ Banks, Andrew Sauls, Harrison Jenkins, Alex Chandler, Zachary Beickman, Logain North, and Cole Privette.

This tournament, referred to as the Quiz Bowl, is a fast-paced buzzer competition. Students are divided into teams of four to compete to answer questions that go beyond what they typically learn in a classroom setting. Students will answer questions on topics including literature, science, popular culture, current events and more.  It’s often referred to as “the Super Bowl of the mind”. It’s argued that this competition is a lot harder than Jeopardy. An interesting fact is that individuals who participated in Quiz Bowl when they were younger have actually went on to become big winners on Jeopardy!

Sullivan explained that Henderson County’s academic team competed in Governor’s Cup events, which are specific to Kentucky, but it wasn’t until 2013 that they started competing in the Quiz Bowl. The team then started taking part in more tournaments, in addition to the Governor’s Cup.

Tournaments and practices began at the beginning of the school year. The first tournament for Quiz Bowl is always the last Saturday in August. The team starts practicing the first week of school and go all the way into June for Nationals.

Rachel Larris, who is a communications liaison for NAQT, stated, “This is truly an inspiring game to watch, especially since these are young students who have fact-based knowledge greater than an average adult! These academic tournaments demand rigorous training and teach students to build strong networks, turning these students into leaders who have the knowledge and skills to become the future leaders who will succeed in the evolving global economy and create positive change in their communities. The matches feature a blend of individual competition and team collaboration and participation in quiz bowl both reinforces lessons from the classroom and encourages players to develop new intellectual interests.”

Sullivan is very proud of how hard the team has worked this year and how determined they are to reach their goal. “I feel very blessed to be able to work with kids that work as hard as these kids do. Through the school year they probably spend 2-3 hours a day working on academics. They come in early before the school day begins and stay after school for practice.”

He said their goal is to break into the Top 10 this weekend, and we wish them the best of luck in achieving that goal!