PCM Middle School students place high at Knowledge Bowl

“How many parts are sung in a barbershop quar...” — BUZZ — “Four” — “Correct.” The flow of questions and answers continued throughout the day at the Iowa Junior High School Knowledge Bowl until the championship round where the PCM Middle School eighth grade “A” team qualified to compete and placed third overall at the event.

Eleven students from the middle school in both seventh and eighth grade participated in the Knowledge Bowl at DMACC in Ankeny with two four-member eighth grade teams and a seventh-grade team with five competitors. The eighth grade “A” team came out on top by qualifying for the championship round and earning medals for finishing third out of 13 teams. The “B” team placed ninth out of 13 for their efforts.

“I thought the Knowledge Bowl went really well,” PCM Extended Learning Program (ELP) teacher Brian Adams said. “The middle school version doesn’t have separate divisions for different sized schools, so to have a team place third was a great accomplishment. Of the six teams who placed in the seventh and eighth-grade competitions, we were the only non-4A school.”

Riley Johannes, Evan Johnson, Justin Hall and Dillon Jenkins made up the eighth-grade quartet who place third. For several of the students, this was the second or third Knowledge Bowl they had competed in and although they got off to a slower start in the eight round competition, by the final few rounds, they found their stride.

“Half of the group who placed third this year actually tied for fourth last year and just missed out on a spot in the championship round. I thought they did a better job this year of maintaining their poise when things weren’t going their way and managed to get into the top three,” Adams said. “From there, it was always going to be tough to beat the two Ankeny teams but I think it is all part of a progression towards the ultimate goal of winning the whole thing in high school.”

Competing on the second eighth-grade team was Donovan Nickelson, Hudson Gear, Ty True and Jack Eighmey. On the seventh grade team, in their first Knowledge Bowl, was Ross Tuttle, Austin Van Maanen, Alex Egland and Jacob Elrod.

“Our seventh grade team, I thought, did well considering it was their first time participating at the finals. I think they learned some valuable lessons that will help them succeed in future competitions,” Adams said. “Our other eighth-grade group did great as well. Like the seventh graders, this was the first time at the finals for almost all of them, but I thought they did a good job of figuring things out and finishing strong.”

Teams from Knoxville, Carlisle, Woodward-Granger, Ankeny, Adair, Colfax-Mingo, Murray and North Polk participated in the competition.

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com