K-Bowl
3/22/2014
Hello All,
First, I don’t usually write folks out of the blue unless I have a more or less on-going correspondence with them. Unless I work with them. Or are related to them. Those of you in the “To:” cell who don’t find themselves in either category are there because you knew me and the Mrs. back in the day when we took this much more seriously.
Today, Wendi, Xander and I went to Arlington High School to watch the 2014 Washington State Knowledge Bowl Championship. We have been talking about doing so every year for, well, ever but 2014 was the year to get it done.
This was due to a combination of State being on this side of the mountains, our awareness of the fact due to a recent MV News article and last month’s (re) discovery of an April 2012 issue of the News which had a wonderful article on the history of LBH Knowledge Bowl. Got us all reminiscing about our glory days. (And annoyed Wendi to no end as they got her college and degree wrong.)
After contacting Coach Hubbard by email to get the details, we made it by 10:00 this morning. Granted, the thing started at 8:00 but we made it. Wendi brought out her carefully packed “National Academic Championship” t-shirt from 1985 when my K-Bowl team went to Dallas. Not for her to wear but it didn’t look so bad on Xander.
Here’s the delightful thing that really shouldn’t have surprised us. Since this year’s Liberty Bell High School quiz kid team contains both a Mendro and a Reynauld, there was a group of Methow Valley Boosters already there to support the team. They were everywhere!
Truth be told, I had concerns of we Hardy’s being the only non-competitors in the room. In retrospect, that was dumb. Of course, families will drive great distances to support their kids.
The choice of Arlington was wonderfully fortuitous because one AHS teacher is Ben Mendro. The Ben Mendro. Okay, for those not steeped in Knowledge Lore, Ben was on the team while I was still cooling my heels at Methow Valley Middle School. One of the LBH Quiz Bowl Legends. Oh, let’s not piss about; Ben is the other Legend.
In the same room.
Kinda like when Mr. Data met Spock.
But way cooler.
As for the competition, our Mighty Mountain Lions did well. 6th or 7th place Seemed to need to some extra practice on social studies (NB: Gettysburg was NOT a famous Revolutionary War battle nor is Glenn Beck is the only surviving Mercury Space Program member.) but since history was my specialty, I’m grading them pretty harsh on this one. The kids seem to know plenty about high school math and English grammar. I assume that was one of my team mate’s responsibility back when. Sure hope it was.
Must admit, in the last round, I kept track of all the questions I had answers to. Out of the 50 questions, I answered 17 (on a large post-it note). Of those, 7 where unanswered by any of the teams. Had there been some sort of emergency which required the invocation of the rarely used State Championship Old Folk Quota, I would not have embarrassed myself nor my alma matter. My son-yes but he should be used to that by now.
Here’s the last thing. Back in the 80s, we buzzed in by touching our fingers across two flat pieces of metal bars, completing a circuit. Then a digital read-out on a box would give you 15 seconds to answer the question. A time keeper held a piece of plastic attached to the box by a thick wire. He or she could reset the timer by laying a thumb over two bolt-heads; again completing the circuit. Even back then, when Ms. Pac Man was pretty high-tech, it seemed a pretty simple system to my eyes.
Guess when/where the below photos were taken! Did you guess “Arlington, WA in 2014”? You guessed it. This wasn’t a case of reusing tried and true engineering. No, this piece of machinery was 30 years old. Those young whipper snappers were using the same devices their (equally brilliant) parents used decades in the past.
For the life of me, I can’t decide whether that's pathetic or awesome.
Well, I have taken up enough of your valuable time. Thank you for indulging me.
Brian
Silverdale, WA
LBH ‘86