The Cook County Knowledge Bowl team performed quite well at the State Knowledge Bowl meet at Cragun’s Resort in Brainerd. The team finished in 12th place after competing against some very large schools from around the state. (L-R) Social Studies teacher and Knowledge Bowl Coach Dorie Carlson, Ben Seaton, Sarah Larsen, Mara MacDonell, Audrey Summers (timekeeper), Sean MacDonell, Will Seaton, Sterling Anderson (timekeeper), Knowledge Bowl Coach April Wahlstrom.
On Thursday, April 11 – 12, 2013, the Cook County Knowledge Bowl team headed through snow to Brainerd for the Minnesota Knowledge Bowl State tournament. Competing were Sarah Larsen, Ben Seaton, Will Seaton, Mara MacDonell and Sean MacDonell. Audrey Summers and Sterling Anderson earned the honor of being scorekeepers at the state meet.
The event began Thursday evening with a banquet to honor these talented teams for making it to the state meet. The Cook County team competed against 125 other teams within our region to make it to state, earning first place at the regional meet. They were hoping to do quite well at state.
After the banquet was the written round. This consisted of a multiple choice test of 60 different questions from all different areas. The Cook County team was tied for second place after the written round and scored 48/60. The top team had 50/60. This gives you an idea of how hard the questions are.
On Friday morning, the oral rounds were started late, as some of the teams didn’t make it through the snow. During the first oral round Cook County’s team was up against the number one team in the state, the team who ended up winning the entire meet, Glencoe-Silver Lake. Glencoe-Silver Lake was fast and quick to dive in and answer the questions correctly.
After the first oral round our team moved down a bit. They spent the next few rounds up against the team that took fourth place overall, Crookston. So despite close scores—Crookston 11 and Cook County 8—the gap continued to increase.
Despite their disappointment, the team realizes that they were doing really well. There was a round where the team in the top room only earned 11 points, as did Cook County. That proved to them that they were doing just fine and that the questions were challenging but they were doing a wonderful job.
In the end Cook County took 12th place, finishing in the top half of competition at state.
To make their finish even more amazing is that almost all of the schools that beat Cook County are much bigger schools. Our team did a wonderful job representing Cook County at the state meet! They were enthusiastic, polite, kind, and they showed their strong wealth of knowledge! We can be very proud of these students!
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