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Mars Hill Unites to make Knowledge Bowl a Success
by Danielle Kamffer
Lauren Cecere and Danielle Kamffer (white T-shirts) keeping score during the championship rounds
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Students from eight Western North Carolina area high schools made their way to Mars Hill College on March 31 to participate in the Championship rounds of the 39th annual Knowledge Bowl.
The Knowledge Bowl is an academic competition among high school teams that answer questions on various topics, including English literature and grammar, history, math, science, and general knowledge, says coordinator and admissions counselor David Georges.
This is the first year Mars Hill has hosted the Knowledge Bowl, taking it over from last year's host, Asheville-Buncombe Technical College, and from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, that hosted it for 25 years prior to that.
"We jumped at the opportunity to host it," says Georges. "The history and prestige of the event is appealing, and of course there are benefits-it is great publicity for Mars Hill!"
Co-coordinator Jon Stoehr says he "really enjoyed promoting [Mars Hill] to some extremely bright potential students."
Georges agrees. "Although our main objective for hosting the competition is to be a service to the community, a definite byproduct is that the campus is exposed. Hopefully these students will consider Mars Hill in the future."
The Knowledge Bowl was a two-weekend event, beginning with 18 teams fighting for the top eight scores on March 24. Those top eight teams then moved on to the championship rounds held on March 31.
Lauren Cecere, who represented Alpha Chi and the Business Honor Society as a volunteer said, "The championship rounds were a lot more interesting because of the head-to- head competition. "There was a lot of pressure on these teams to beat their rivals, but they still had fun. I spent a lot of time with the team from Polk County, all of whom were clowns and made us laugh with their answers."
Cecere was one of about 30 student volunteers who helped as score keepers and timers for the competition. "We had many student groups volunteer," said Georges, "such as Alpha Chi, the Student Ambassadors, the Business Honor Society, and the Black Student Association…Without the students who volunteered, the Knowledge Bowl would not have been successful."
Abby DeBusk, who volunteered for both the Student Government and Alpha Chi, remembers her experience fondly: "I enjoyed being able to be around other faculty and students here, and getting to know the students in my room. It was fun!"
Georges hopes the event will have a new home at Mars Hill and become an annual event. "A large part of its success was the great volunteers who came out," said Georges. "Besides the student volunteers, we had more than 20 faculty and staff come out. It was a total team effort, a lot of fun, and almost everyone is willing to help out next year too."
Volunteer Porsha Lackey, who represented the Black Student Association, is ready to help out again next year. "It was really interesting hearing the things high school kids knew that I didn't," said Lackey. "I will be the first to sign up to help again next year!"
Cecere agrees that next year she will definitely be among the volunteers and adds, "Polk County High probably made that decision for me…the questions were really challenging and when they didn't know an answer, they would make one up. It is hard to take the competition seriously when a team is having that much fun!"
When asked what her favorite answer of the day was, Cecere didn't even have to think. "That's easy," says Cecere, "Question: What do you call a resident from Naples? They answered so seriously I almost didn't want to laugh…but when they themselves couldn't help but laugh, the whole room exploded."
Their answer? "Napoleons!" *
* (For those who want to know the actual answer: It's Neapolitans-- yes -- as in Neapolitan ice cream.)
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