The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WAITSBURG - "What highly visible U.S. solar panel corporation that re- ceived a half-billion dollar loan guarantee in the stimulus package went bankrupt in 2011?"

" These words were probably derived from what ancient language? Mahatama, stupe, chakra, avatar, kar- ma, banyan, sutra, mantra, musk, nir- vana."

Such were the questions faced by six members of the Waitsburg High School Knowledge Bowl team. The team placed ninth in the Washington State Knowledge Bowl Tournament at Ar- lington High School, north of Seattle, this past weekend. For the record, the answers are Solynrda and Sanskrit, respectively.

Knowledge Bowl coach Brad Green chose six top team members to attend the state competition: junior EJ Meserve, sophomore Emma Philbrook, junior Meara Baker, sophomore Hannah Grant, senior Alex Leathers and Belgian ex- change student Thibault Martinelle. Chinese ex- change student and Knowl- edge Bowl member, Cherry Dai was allowed to travel with the team to share in the experience.

The group met for a team breakfast at WHS Friday morning before departing for Seattle. In Seattle they attended the Experience Music Project, viewed the city from the Space Needle, rode the monorail, hung out at Pike Place Market and ate dinner at Zeke's Pizza.

"One of my favorite parts of the 'detour' through Se- attle was experiencing all the different kinds of people," said Meara Baker. "Com- ing from the small town of Waitsburg, we don't see that crazy variety of people and street performers."

Saturday morning, the team began competition, with a round of 50 written questions which were scored to determine team place- ment. Six more rounds of 50 oral questions each, followed, making up the semi- finals and finals.

Waitsburg was required to beat nine teams to make it to the afternoon finals. When scores were tallied, it was determined that they had beat eight teams and tied the ninth. The judges at- tempted to settle the tie with a mini tie-breaker round, but the WHS team, who had read the official rules aloud together prior to the tournament, disagreed. "The rules said that in the case of a tie, the winner would be determined by the written round scores and that winner would advance to the finals," said Meara Baker. "That meant we had won."

After some strenuous de- bate between Coach Green and the officials, it was agreed that WHS was cor- rect and would right- fully be moved for- ward to the finals, where they claimed ninth position in state.

The WHS Knowl- edge Bowl team has competed at the state level the last three years. In 2011, they failed to proceed past the morning elimination rounds. In 2012, they placed fifth in State and this year they placed ninth. Coach Green is optimistic about future years as well. "We've got some re- ally smart kids here now and some really smart kids coming up in the next couple of years. Success breeds success," said Green.