Seward Hosts State High School Literature Quiz Bowl in Conjunction with Plum Creek Lit Festival
Seward hosted the State High School Literature Quiz Bowl in conjunction with the Plum Creek Children’s Literacy Festival on Wednesday, Sept. 21 at the Seward Civic Center. It was sponsored by the Nebraska English Language Arts Council (NELAC), the state affiliate of the National Council Teachers of English (NCTE). NELAC is the Nebraska English Teachers State Association and has sponsored this state quiz bowl for high school students for 18 years at the Plum Creek Children’s Literacy Festival.
The quiz bowl featured a morning session for the teams in a round robin format, placing teams of four students from schools of similar sizes against each other in rounds of questions based on literature. The sessions each lasted 20 minutes and featured 80 questions on the entire aspect of literature. Each school participated in four rounds in the morning and then, based on wins, loses and points generated, the teams ended the day with a single elimination tourney.
There were two tourneys in one-one for large schools and one for smaller schools. The questions for the contest are all computer generated and purchase from Academic Hallmarks in Colorado for the tourney and were specifically designed for this event.
The winners in the large school included First Place-Gretna High Team A coached by Andrea Hartman, Second Place-Bellevue East coached by Dave Bossman, Third Place Gretna High Team B and Fourth Place was Kearney Catholic High coached by Kathy Niebalski.
In the small school division, First Place was won by Hampton High coached by Regina Farris, Second Place went to Howells Dodge High coached by Traci Sindelar, Third Place winner was Friend High coached by Jake Wiese and Fourth Place was awarded to Oakland Craig High coached by Nancy Guenther of Oakland.
Schools participating in the contest included Hampton, Oakland-Craig, Howells-Dodge, Exeter-Milligan, Heartland of Henderson, Friend, Central City, Osceola, York, Seward, Bellevue East, Kearney Catholic, Milford, and Gretna. There were 24 teams total for the contest! Each winner and runner up team won a trophy and the top team all received engraved medallions from NELAC/NCTE.
Volunteers for the contest included readers for the questions –Kathy Niebalski of Kearney, Jake Wiese of Friend, Dave Bossman of Bellevue, Andrea Hartman of Gretna, Traci Sindelar of Howells-Dodge, Brandon Wright of Central City and Clark Kolterman of Seward.
SHS students serve as volunteers for the tourney and included Ryan Wall and Kiernan Baker as hosts and tally keepers, along with the timers, scorers and runners which included Brady Smith, Jack Yelden, Garret Kuss, Brady Smith, Jayden Germer, Wyatt Shafer, Jacob Spidell, Jarod Harris, Andrew Gokie, Austin Dobrusky, Sam Perry, Alondra Brooks, Sierra Clark, Daniel Ellingson. SHS Asst. AD, Charles Gebhardt served as the Quiz Bowl Master and Clark Kolterman assisted as the Tourney Coordinator.
Seward High had two teams at the contest and the SHS Team B placed 5th –winning three of the four matches in the morning and the fourth overall seed and losing in the semi-finals in the afternoon and the SHS Team A placed 6th, winning one match in the morning and one in the afternoon tourney and were the tenth seed.
SHS Team members in the tourney included Team A Zach Vacha-Captain, Joelle Dieckhoff, Janel Robertson, Kylyn Clawson, Rannon Lyons. SHS Team B included Grace Orwen –Captain, Jake Marshall, Nana Abenaa Wright, Sydney Erickson.
The GFWC Seward Woman’s Club hosted a noon lunch for the volunteers for the tourney-including the readers, student volunteers-timers, scorers and runners for the event.