Searcy (LP) Many students are completely unaware of one team at Searcy High School…quiz bowl. Quiz bowl is an academic competition where teams of five students compete to answer questions over a wide range of subjects. A game consists of four rounds. Round one has twenty toss-up questions, and round two has ten toss-up questions with sixteen available bonus questions. Round three is known as the lightning round where teams select one of three topics based on a short description and are given sixty-seconds to answer ten questions. And finally, round four has twenty toss-up questions. At the end, the team with the most points wins. Quiz bowl season is all year. Some schools host invitationals through out the fall and winter, and in February and April the regional and state competitions are held. The Searcy team practices every Monday, and close to competitions they also practice on Fridays. Mrs. Joyner, a social studies teacher, is the team’s sponsor. To practice, the team splits into two groups and plays a mock game. They also have study sessions where they memorize things like world capitals, mathematics, scientific scales, and more.
When asked about the upcoming tournament, sophomore Jackson Benight said, “We’ve been studying, but there are a lot of good teams that will be there. We always aim to come home with a trophy. We will do our best and see what happens.” Searcy will be going against other 6A schools from all over the state. Russellville, Benton, Greenwood, Mt. Home, Sheridan, Jacksonville, and Arkansas High School will all be there competing. This year a rare occurrence happened. A freshman was allowed to play for the high school. In recent years a change in rules have allowed freshman to play on both their junior high and high school teams. Freshman Holden Jones said, “It’s an honor and a privilege to get the opportunity to play with the high schoolers. It will also give me an advantage next year because I will already know how high school quiz bowl works. I feel like I have improved, and I hope that eventually I can help lead Searcy to a state title.”
This year the team consists of Ashley Workman (captain and senior), Adrianna Walls (senior), Cade Smith (junior), Emma Hendricks (junior), Joey Reardon (junior), Henry Nguyen (junior), Jackson Benight (sophomore), Weston Simpson (sophomore), and Holden Jones (freshman). On March 10, the team traveled to UALR-Benton for the Regional competition, there they won third place and qualified to advance to the state finals. On April 1, they will travel to UAFS to compete for a chance to play for the State title on AETN.
