LHS wins knowledge bowl for fourth consecutive year

On December 4, Lovell High School hosted the annual Big Horn Basin Knowledge Bowl, in which schools from the Big Horn Basin competed for the traveling trophy.

Some of the teams that competed include Powell High School, Greybull High School and Worland High School, as well as Lovell.

While Lovell hosted the event, they also registered two teams to compete. Team one (the varsity team) consisted of senior Jarret Allen, who was the team captain, senior Davin Crosby, senior Taggart Shumway, sophomore Nathan Cornia, senior Braxton Felkins and senior James Blau (the alternate). Team two (the JV team) consisted of sophomore Cutler Wilkerson, sophomore Dean Anderson, sophomore Porter Blau, sophomore Wilson Hendershot, junior Jasmine Keele and freshman Kyson Crosby.

Lovell One ended up winning the knowledge bowl and keeping the trophy for the fourth year in a row. Lovell two didn’t place but still had an impressive performance. Other teams in the top three were Greybull High School One and Riverside High School One.

In an interview with Advisor Bret George, he explained how the event functioned. George said there are five rounds. Rounds one, two, four and five are oral rounds. In the oral rounds, 60 questions are asked in each round, and students are not allowed to communicate the answers with each other, but the team leader is allowed to recognize someone on their team to answer a certain question.

Round three, however, is the written round. In the written round, each team will get a paper packet with 60 questions, and they are allowed to communicate answers with each other during this round. The written round is to be completed in a certain amount of time, which varies, depending on the event.

George also explained that there are several topics for questions, and the students never know what and when they are going to be. Some of the topics include math, geography and history, literature and current events. Some teams choose to have “specialists” in these categories, meaning they build their team based on what category each player is best at.

WAC

Lovell also competed at a Wyoming Academic Challenge tournament in Thermopolis, hosted by Hot Springs County High School, on December 7 and took two teams. Team One consisted of the same people that were on Team One during the knowledge bowl minus Felkins, who was the captain on Team Two with Wilson Hendershot, Cutler Wilkerson and Porter Blau. Lovell One took second place, losing to Cheyenne East High School’s varsity team.

The event was exactly the same as Knowledge Bowl other than teams from around the state could compete, rather than just teams from the Big Horn Basin. George was more than impressed with his team’s overall performance.

“I am still just amazed at how much knowledge these kids have,” he said. “It’s remarkable the way our students act and represent Lovell High School.”

George continued about how much potential the teams have to do well in further competitions and to do well at the state event. George said he is going to be taking an intermission during the months of January and February, so Josey Allen will be taking over until George returns.

The next WAC event that Lovell is going to compete in will be at Northwest College in Powell on January 4. The team lineup is still unknown.