WV History Bowl Regional Runners Up

The Building on the background is the West Virginia Northern Community College

West Virginia has an annual History Bowl competition for schools across the mountain states.   My children's school, St. Joseph School from Weirton, participates to it since 9 years ago.  This is an event that my daughter was looking forward to.  We started reviewing for her materials since the beginning of November of last year.  

The school does not provide a coach so students are on their own.  The lack of support from the school makes some of the students not wanting to participate but my daughter really wanted to do it so she worked really hard in learning the facts.  She told me that she would do it by herself if she has to,  lol.  I really wish that the school would designate a coach for this specific  event, the kids would be more motivated and they will have someone to guide them.  We worked with our daughter in reviewing  her materials, my husband,  her brother, and me are  part of her team.  It's the same way with the other members, families are the coaches.

It's a team of four  and I am so glad that one of their classmates stepped up and agreed to be on their team 4 days before the competition.  It wasn't enough time to learn facts but kudos to her for doing it.  Some of the girls also came to support the team during the competition.  

They decided that my daughter will be the team captain.  Our daughter is very driven, sometimes it scares me but it's a good thing I think.  If she  think she won't do a very good job, she doesn't even want to try it but when she's confident, nothing  stops her.  She does really well with pressure although I am concern when she is anxious because she constantly picks on her fingers.  During the competition (final round), her fingers were tore up from her picking on it, it got bloody.

Glad their friends came as their moral support, it meant a lot to them.

The history bowl organizers  served  light refreshments and snacks before the  competition begins.

We arrived a bit early at the venue so we had a chance to take pictures and look around inside the Independence Hall, in Wheeling West Virginia.  Our school is part of the  Northern Panhandle, Region 6.  Eight grades from across this region battled it out for a chance to compete in the championship in April which will be held in Charleston.  Teams of four faced off against each other, answering questions about the state's history in the double-elimination tournament. 

St. Joseph's official  team includes Antonio A., Hannah B., Juliana V., and our daughter Rylie.  With them is the school's principal, Mrs. Fuscardo.

Here are the scores during the  elimination rounds.

• Round 1 - 30 winner - 3 other school
• Round 2 - 28 winner - 7 other school
• Round 3 - 22 winner - 4 other school
• Round 4 - 22 lost  against Sherard School who got 26 score
• Round 5 - I don't have the actual score but we won against Cameron School.
• Round 6 - St. Joseph battled with Sherard School again but lost to 4 points.

Our school  was the runner up but they will have a chance to  battle it out for the championship  this coming April in Charleston.  All the champions and  runners up from different regions will compete again.  

The two months break will give them the time to  review again and learn more facts about West Virginia.

I am  glad that our team was very confident in going into this competition.

The reigning champion for years  was the Cameron School but since their coach left and went to Sherard, they did not win this year.  Sherard got the title this year.  Coach for this kind of event is really important because the kids can get proper training before the competition.  Considering our children's situation though, they did really well.  Hopefully, St. Joseph will take this opportunity to really assign a coach, fingers crossed.

My daughter is very competitive so she always wants to  do her best in  everything that she participates into.  I told her that even if they don't win, the experience alone is great.  She said "There's no fun in losing"  which I agree but we reminded her that  you can't always win and that's the reality of life.    

I am so glad that their hard work really paid off and they earned a spot for the championship.

Their team will be the second team from St. Joseph School that gets to participate for the championship in Charleston.  The last team was from 4 years ago so they are excited.

Out of 10 schools in Ohio, Marshall, Brooke, and Wetzel counties competed throughout the day on Friday.  The top-two teams advancing to the state tournament will be our school, St. Joseph School, and Sherard.

 The 2,100 questions consist of  West Virginia History; Trivia, Geography, politics, pop culture as explained by the  History Bowl Coordinator Matthew McGrew. 

 This event gives  these young minds  not just a great way to gain knowledge but it  also showcases each participant's pride for the region.

"As you know, in 8th grade, we get our big year of West Virginia studies, and we try for the Golden Horseshoe. I just thought it'd be a great idea to let these kids get together; it helps them get more knowledge. But the biggest is, it builds pride," said Randall Reid-Smith, curator for the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture, and History.

Below is a video I managed to record before the battery of my camera died. At 10:10 of the video, I suspect a supernatural occurrence, the scoreboard went off and my camera went blurry.. I think the question touched a ghost's nerve lol.

The kids are so motivated by the result of this event. My son is even considering to do it too when it's time for their class to compete in two years. The good thing about it is that, we already have some of the materials that he needs, we just need to update the names of politicians.  Our kids need to learn more about the revolutionary era and the geography facts, those are the two areas, they seemed to  struggled in remembering.