On March 4, a new SCHS history quiz bowl team started by Contemporary Issues teacher, William Hippe, will be competing in a competition at SLU University. Students on the team are Simon Fernandez, Jakob Bredell, Claire Schkerke, Andrew Kelch and Virginia Werth. The idea for starting this team was given to Hippe by Academic Worldquest, a youth education program created for fun competition between high school students.

“They sent us a flier and it sounded very interesting and leans towards current issues that fits perfectly with the current events class I teach,” Hippe said.

The competition is divided into seven different categories of various topics. All the rules and regulations of the competitions are new to the whole team, even Hippe himself. For senior Virginia Werth the competition will be like a trivia night of sorts.   

“My understanding is that the competition will run sort of like a trivia night. There will be many other schools there each with four members making up their teams,” she said. “I think that we will be asked questions about a variety of global, national and local topics and our responses are scored by judges.”

AIP is an important time for the team of newbies. It is their training time. The team is preparing for the competition, practicing constantly. Winning and learning is their number one priority according to senior Jakob Bredell.

“Honestly, I feel as if I have given this competition priority over some of my classes due to the severe amount of studying that must be done to succeed,” Bredell said.

Winning an award would be great for the newly formed team, making history for this group of students. Bredell and his other team members are hoping to bring home the rookie award. 

“We aspire to start a tradition of winning and have been working towards that goal for about a month now.” Bredell said. “They offer a rookie of the year award every year so we hope to bring that home with us after the competition on March 4.”

The rookie award would be a great achievement for the team. For the whole team this will be their first time competing in anything like this and Werth thinks that the team has a very strong chance of doing great at the competition.

“I think that we have very strong members on our team and that we will go far in the competition,” she said, “No matter what, because this is our first time competing, whatever we are able to do at the competition will be a lifetime best for us and for our school. I am excited for the experience and have faith that we will do well at the competition.”

The competitions involve various high schools from all over the nation. Students all come together during one of these competitions learning from and growing with each other. 

“This is a really cool thing for students to get exposure, not only for the fact that it is taking place at a college campus. You will be able to interact with other students from high schools,” Hippe said.

If the team wins at their local competition, they will go to Nationals in Washington D.C. in the later weeks of April.