Knowledge Bowl is an intense academic competition involving questions surrounding anything from typical school subjects and beyond. The participants work together in their teams and answer both oral and written questions. This may look easy, but it’s a tough competition when you acknowledge that the written round has 60 questions and oral rounds have 50 questions each; this sort of competitive thinking is not for the faint of heart (or brain). 

In an interview with Mrs. Brady, the teacher in charge of the Knowledge Bowl team, she mentions their close call with Liberty High School and how they pulled through. “We went into it kind of as the second seat, so in the fall we do a competition once a month, and every competition we would lose by one point to Liberty, or we’d tie them.” PR’s team went into this competition knowing that Liberty’s team was bigger, knowing that it was going to be tough, and crushing it anyways.

The rounds were grueling with Liberty being a 5A team, it would definitely take a lot of effort. The first two rounds had the schools at a tie, but PR fought for their rightful first place. Once those first two rounds were over and they had advanced farther than Liberty, the rest would be a piece of cake as long as they knew the questions and other teams fell out of range to beat them. 

“They were in a round, and the round has 50 questions, and they knew, I think it was by question 46, that they had won, because there was no way the other team was gonna make up the difference they had.” Mrs. Brady shared this statement with pride as she talked about their excited reactions. Thankfully everyone kept their composure and instead of celebrating right then and there, stayed calm until the end of the round and sealed their win with a glorious (and figurative) kiss.

Their victory earned them the qualification for the state tournament in Greeley on March 13th. The team wants to ascend past their previous goal of 4A and 6th overall, and with this being the first in person competition since 2019, the stress is on. To anyone who wants to support our Knowledge Bowl team, please wish them luck on their next competition.