| Knowledge
Bowl team shines at Regional competition
On Friday, February 24th the Prairie High School Knowledge Bowl team ventured to Spokane, Washington to compete in the Inland Northwest Science Regional Bowl Competition. Fifty-four teams from Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington, including two from Prairie, participated in this event. This is the qualifying competition for the National Science Bowl held in Washington, D.C. in late April, and is sponsored by the Department of Energy. The morning of February 25th started with a little snow and quickly turned to a blizzard. But despite the weather – the competition continued. Each team at the event faced six teams on Saturday morning. Each team was ranked by using a complex formula that considered - wins and losses, points for and against the team, strength of schedule and the standing of the opponent. The top 18 teams would make it to the Finals in the afternoon. The Prairie 1 team of Josh Zigler, Chris Hoene, Josh Roeper, Claire Whitley and Westin Crenshaw tore it up in the morning winning four of their six matches. All schools, regardless of size, were pitted against each other. Prairie 1 defeated larger Washington schools – Rogers 1 of Spokane 44-28, as well as Northwest Christian 20-12 and our Distict II neighbor, Kendrick 34-26. They won by forfeit to large school Lewis and Clark 3. They lost to large school Lewis & Clark 1 90-40 - the eventual 4th place team, and large school Lakeside of Washington 26-36. After the morning competition Prairie 1 was ranked 16th of the 54 teams and made it to the finals. In the afternoon Prairie 1 lost to large school Coeur d’Alene 1 - 52-16. CDA 1 was the eventual 2nd place team. The Prairie 2 team of Ashley Cannon, Kyle Uhlenkott, Samantha Keating, Heidi Holubetz and Emily McHugh did not fare so well, and lost most of their matches. They had a very tough schedule and lost to Logos, who qualified to attend the National Competition last year, and some large Washington and Idaho schools. Interesting statistics: Over half of the teams in the finals were Idaho teams. The vast majority of the schools in the finals had over 1000 students in their high schools. Prairie and Nezperce were among the smallest schools competing, and the only small school teams to make it to the finals. As the coach of the Prairie Knowledge Bowl, I am very proud of the entire team. They did a great job representing our community. I am thankful for the help of Mrs. McLeod, Prairie Science teacher. In addition to our weekly practices, she organized quite a few lunch time practices to help coach the students specifically in Science and Math. The Science and Math skills demonstrated by our students at this competition are a reflection of the great Math and Science education they have received here at Prairie from not only Mrs. McLeod, but Mrs. Duclos, Mrs. Ellis, Mrs. Sonnen, Mr. Deiss and Mrs. Savage. Thanks also to our chaperones Mr. Crenshaw and Mrs. Whitley and our bus driver Angie Ahlers. Also a special thanks to Police Chief Terry Cochran for connecting us to a live person so we could find out when the road from Spokane finally opened. I am very proud of our Knowledge Bowl Team! 
Westin Crenshaw, Josh Roeper, Josh Zigler and Chris Hoene listen intently to one of the questions at the Regional Knowledge Bowl. 
Samantha Keating, Ashley Cannon, Kyle Uhlenkott and Emily McHugh are ready for the competition to start. |
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