Joplin school wins scholar bowl state championship

JOPLIN, Mo. — Students at one Joplin school can now call themselves state champions. And one of them hopes to display his skills before a national audience some day.

Win or lose, just going to the final four in any competition, involving the body or mind is a great achievement. And for College Heights, it’s the 12th year in a row to compete at the state level in scholar bowl competition. And a highlight of Rebekah Law’s senior year.

Rebekah Law, College Heights Senior, Team Member, said, “I didn’t get to go to State last year, you know because you know Covid shut it all down, I think we would have gone down but there was no state, so like senior year it was my first time at state because I didn’t go as a Sophomore, so it was like special.”

The High School’s Scholar Bowl team competed for and won the state 4-A competition this past weekend in Columbia.

Team members try to have a minimum of knowledge on most subjects, and an expertise in at least one of them.

Aadyn Crider Mullins, College Heights Junior, Team Member, said, “I enjoy history stuff but I also enjoy like a lot of random knowledge maybe like some film, theater stuff, something like that as well.”

Gabriel Forrest, College Heights Junior, Team Member, said, “I mainly play literature and fine arts and specifically like visual, so a lot of like painting or performance or sculpture, so I buy a lot of books and read a lot of philosophical papers on it, so I just do that, and then I read a lot of the primary works for literature for like short stories and novels, and then everything else kind of get a cursory knowledge of.”

And for the second time in two years, Forrest has been selected to be among a handful of students to represent the show-me state at the upcoming national all-star academic tournament, and he’s only a junior.

“I mainly play literature and fine arts and specifically like visual, so a lot of like painting or performance or sculpture, so I buy a lot of books and read a lot of philosophical papers on it, so I just do that, and then I read a lot of the primary works for literature for like short stories and novels, and then everything else kind of get a cursory knowledge of.”

And he hopes this won’t be his only appearance on KSN.

“Actually a lot of former Quiz Bowlers and current Quiz Bowlers still play for Jeopardy, so like one day.”

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