The Scholar Bowl Team made it all the way to Scholar Bowl Nationals this year. They placed second overall in Scholar Bowl State and 13th in Nationals.
Scholar Bowl is sponsored by Michelle Wahlquist and the Scholar Bowl Team consists of Charlie Harp (12), Nate Waggoner (12), Aidyn Owings (10), Sam LaFreniere (10), Madison Crews (9), and Aydan McClinton (9). This team made it all the way to Nationals this year.
At state the Fair Grove Scholar Bowl team traveled to the University of Missouri campus in Columbia, Missouri, and competed with four other districts. Wahlquist explained, “The final four in Class 4 were, College Heights Christian (Joplin), Winfield, and Kansas City Lutheran.”
The Scholar Bowl competitors have to play against the other winners from other districts and win to be able to advance to the state finals and maybe even win the state championship. The Fair Grove Scholar Bowl team played each team in preliminaries and played College Heights in finals. The team took second overall and finished as the best public school in Class 4.
Wahlquist stated, “Preliminaries couldn’t have been much closer: we lost to College Heights by 20 (two questions), beat Winfield by 10 (1 question) and beat Lutheran by 40 (4 questions) We would have liked to win against College Heights, of course, but they did finish 4th in the private school division of Small School Nationals last weekend, so they are very talented.”
McClinton said, “Competing is either the most intense, high stake thing ever or a really fun, friendly thing. Your nerves are through the roof and every time the buzzer sounds, you’re probably sweating, but you also make a lot of friends from other schools you never would’ve elsewhere. Seeing so many people from so many schools is such a mind blowing experience.”
Scholar Bowl Nationals is hosted by the National Academic Quiz Bowl Tournament. Nationals was held April 27-28 in Chicago, Illinois.
Before competition the team took a day to themselves enjoying Illinois. Wahlquist stated, “We did some sightseeing on Friday, going to the Chicago Institute of Art, Millennial Park, and other downtown shops, and The Metro public transit.”
At Nationals the Fair Grove Scholar Bowl team competed and defeated aginsted defeating Decatur, (MI), Morris B (OK), Westmont (IL), Melbourne (AK), Lawton- Bronson (IA), Annville-Cleona (PA), West Point B (AL), and Swanton (OH). They went on to other finalists but lost to Glasgow (KY), and Bayless (St. Louis, MO).
“We began in 13th place and beat Winnebago (XX) 295-215 and Glasgow (KY) 310-300 but lost to West Iron County (MI) 255-235, who finished 4th overall, and Centralia (MO) 245-280, who finished 8th,” Whalquist explained.
