STANWOOD — These students take trivia to the next level.
On Saturday, a team of six Stanwood high schoolers beat out the best of the best trivia buffs from around the state to claim the 3A division Knowledge Bowl championship.
It took more than knowing the right answers — the competition is also about who can get to the buzzer first, and which group can work together to play to each member’s strengths.
Seniors Henry Johnson and Logan Ritterbush specialize in history and geography.
Friends since childhood, the two bonded over a love of drawing maps and creating worlds.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the world around me,” Johnson said. “Physically, where I am, and the traits of that place.”
Ritterbush had a chance to put the knowledge he’d been intentionally and subconsciously gathering to use his sophomore year when he got subbed onto the state Knowledge Bowl team.
“Logan came back from state that weekend and was just totally enamored,” Johnson said. “He was like ‘Man, we need to do this next year!’”
Knowledge Bowl, which started in Colorado in 1978, is an academic contest similar to the old General Electric College Bowl. It includes a series of oral rounds and a written round.
Hundreds of teams across the state competed throughout the year. The highest finishing schools based on enrollment numbers then competed in the state Knowledge Bowl tournament.
Ritterbush said the thrill of answering a tough question drew him in.
The most satisfying questions to answer are “the ones you didn’t know you knew,” Johnson said. Those gleaned from leisure reading or listening to the radio.
There’s no surefire way to prepare for a bowl. The questions aren’t based on any one school curriculum.
“They range from the absurd to the equally absurd,” Johnson said.
Their junior year, Ritterbush and Johnson recruited friends with complementary passions — math, literature, grammar — to create a well-rounded group.
By the time they hit the road to West Valley High School in Yakima last weekend, they worked together seamlessly.
“They are a very cohesive team of six people,” coach and Stanwood High science teacher Susan Britain said. “No matter their expertise, they’re very respectful of each other.”
The Stanwood squad included Johnson and Ritterbush along with senior Zane MacKinnon and juniors Cole Welch, Jeffrey Rahman and Forest Cook.
The group didn’t get frustrated if one member gave a wrong answer. Instead, they saw each mistake as a learning experience.
Even after their win, the team climbed back into their district van and spent the road trip back to Stanwood analyzing what questions they missed.
“They call themselves nerds, but in a good way,” Britain said.
“Not a whole lot of people like to focus on these things down to the minutia. Down to the small facts of history and math. It’s not often you get six people with this depth of knowledge working together.”
Julia-Grace Sanders: 425-339-3439; jgsanders@heraldnet.com.
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