LYNNWOOD – For the Peretti family, Tuesday’s Hi-Q championship was a time to marvel.
Julie Busch / The Herald
After Conner Peretti, a senior at Meadowdale High School, finished matching wits with students from Monroe and Coupeville high schools, his father, Paul Peretti, smiled broadly, and his grandparents, Gene and Joyce Peretti, shook their heads in amazement.
“It was way over my head, I’ll tell you that,” Gene Peretti said.
Meadowdale students knew, for instance, that Hamilton Fish was secretary of state during President Grant’s administration, what point mutations were and that Giambattista Tiepolo painted “Glory of Spain” on the ceiling of the throne room in the royal palace to celebrate the family of Charles III.
Hi-Q, sponsored by Everett Community College, attracts some of the sharpest minds from 20 high schools in Snohomish, Island and Skagit counties.
On Tuesday, in front of their classmates, Meadowdale won its first Hi-Q championship since the competition began in Washington state in 1976. Meadowdale scored 42 points, Monroe 30 and Coupeville 24.
Coupeville is the smallest school to ever reach the championship round.
For Conner Peretti, who has been on Meadowdale’s Hi-Q team since his freshman year, the trophy was nice, but so was the recognition from the student body.
“When I was younger, it was like, ‘What’s Hi-Q anyway?’ But now people are like, ‘Hi-Q, that’s awesome,’ and they cheer,” he said.
Hailey Harroun, a Meadowdale junior and the team’s geography specialist, said Hi-Q is a major commitment.
“It takes a lot of dedication,” she said. “It feels like it’s another class. You have to study so much. You don’t just have one subject to study for, you have four or five.”
“One of the things about these students is I don’t have to tell them to study,” Meadowdale coach Paul Kasprzyk said. “They do it themselves.”
Hi-Q has been called the grandfather of all academic quiz competitions. It has been around 57 years, more than half that time in Washington state, making it the oldest continuous quiz competition for high school students in the nation. EvCC assumed local sponsorship in recent years.
In winning the championship, Meadowdale received a $1,000 check. Its team also included Amber Jensen, Frances Li, Megan Johnson, Joseph Lee, Donald Chan and Erica Derring.
Monroe, which often fields strong teams, made the finals for the second straight year. Its team, advised by Dave Korkowski, included Leslie Apland, Lucy Blue, Emily Baker, Scott Britton, Sabrina Burkhardt and Laurel Wells.
Members of the Coupeville squad were Rebecca Olson, Sean Parshall, Aaron Gavin, Aaron Krill, Emily Miller, Amanda Sterling and Barbara Clark. The coach is Chic Merwine.
“It was really great,” said Olson, a Coupeville junior who has been on the team for three years. “Our school has never gotten this far. All the hard work paid off.”
Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or stevick@heraldnet.com.
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