In a buzzer-beater, Stanwood wins Hi-Q crown

Published 10:49 pm Tuesday, March 23, 2010

STANWOOD — The championship came down to one question — a math toss-up.

The house was packed.

In a race against the clock and two other agile-minded teams, Stanwood High School’s Hi-Q squad opened its envelope and found this algebra question:

“To encourage her son to solve mathematics problems, the engineer paid him $11 for each problem solved correctly. But the son had to pay his mother $6 for each problem worked incorrectly. At the end of 51 problems, neither one owed the other any money. How many problems had the son correctly worked?”

A dozen students — four from each team — furiously scribbled away.

Twelve seconds later, Stanwood senior John “Alec” Parker pushed the button of the buzzer.

Answer it right and the crown belonged to Stanwood; answer incorrectly and the title could go to Monroe High School. Take too long to solve it or skip a step in haste and all could be squandered.

“Eighteen,” Parker said.

When the quiz master confirmed he was right, the audience erupted into a loud prolonged applause. Stanwood edged Monroe and Arlington high schools in the finals of a competition that began with 18 schools in January.

“I knew it was right,” said Parker, who plans to study plant sciences at Cornell University in New York next year. “This is a big deal to us. Almost all of us are seniors and we aren’t going to be here next year.”

Stanwood lost at home in the finals a year ago. The final score this time was Stanwood 41, Monroe 36 and Arlington 26.

“We were probably about 10 to 15 seconds from solving it,” said Ginnie Tadvick, a member of Monroe’s Hi-Q squad. “It was a good match. It was really close.”

Hi-Q, sponsored regionally by Everett Community College, is the oldest continuous academic quiz competition for high school students in the nation. It started in 1948 in Pennsylvania and started in Washington state in 1976.

Questions are based on 14 standard high school courses, such as American history, chemistry, literature, math, physics and world history.

Sometimes, it is the more obscure subjects that no one volunteers for that make the difference.

Rebecca Raible has become Stanwood’s art history specialist, and her long hours poring over art books paid off Tuesday when she answered two questions correctly and picked up key points.

She knew that James Ensor was a Flemish artist who first attracted public attention in 1888 with his painting “Entrance of Christ into Brussels” and that “La Revue Blanche” was the name of a French literary magazine founded by the Natanson brothers that produced famous posters designed by Toulouse-Lautrec and Pierre Bonnard.

“The first year I begged Rebecca to do it,” said Stanwood’s Hi-Q adviser Kathy Redfern. “The last two years, she asked for it. I’m glad she did.”

Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446, stevick@heraldnet.com.

Could you Hi-Q?

Here’s a sample of some of the questions asked Tuesday in the annual regional Hi-Q championship match at Stanwood High School (answers below):

1. President Rutherford B. Hayes and his wife, Lucy, were advocates for temperance. Give the first lady’s nickname.

2. Identify the pouch located at the beginning of the large intestine in some herbivores, such as rabbits and horses, where bacteria helps to break down cellulose.

3. The city of Gdansk in northern Poland lies on a gulf off the Baltic Sea. Give the name of this gulf.

4. Give the name of the compound of phosphorous and sulfur found in the head of a modern “strike-anywhere” match.

5. The rate at which radiant energy is emitted by an object is proportional to the absolute or Kelvin temperature of the material. State the name of the power to which the rate at which radiant energy is emitted by an object is proportional to the absolute or Kelvin temperature.

Answers: 1. Lemonade Lucy; 2. Cecum; 3. Gulf of Danzig; 4. Tetraphosphorous trisulfide; 5. Four or fourth.