TORRINGTON – The Wyoming Academic Challenge (WAC) held its last competition before state on Saturday, Feb. 11 at the Eastern Wyoming College (EWC) campus. At this meet, 14 teams from across the state competed in four rounds of questions in order to win medals and an EWC scholarship. 

The event’s overall champion was team number one from Lovell High School, with a final score of 600 points. The students on this team were Keeton Mollett, Garrett Lillard, Jordan Allen and Jarrett Allen. Each of these students received a first-place medal and a one-year, resident tuition scholarship to EWC.

The small school champion was a team from Pine Bluffs High School, with a final score of 385 points. The students on this team were Edwin Morales, Aylin Reza, Twyla Butler and Rebecca Taylor McCollum. This award is given to the top team from a small school. 

A school is considered small if they have 250 or fewer students enrolled. There were five small schools represented at this event.

Second place in the contest went to the number one team from Cheyenne East High School with a final score of 590 points. The students on this team were David HaberKorn, Thomas Dixon, Karson Costa and Kinsington Dobler.

Third place went to the number one team from Cheyenne Central High School with a final score of 555 points. Andrea Edwards, Josh Vann and Nathaniel Thornell were the students on this team. 

According to the about us page on wyomingacademicchallenge.com, “The Wyoming Academic Challenge is a series of academic contests designed to provide high schools in Wyoming with a regular season of academic competition culminating with a state tournament. Scholarships, team trophies or plaques, as well as individual medals, are awarded at each contest.”

This program focuses primarily on academic subjects and tests students’ wide range of knowledge.

“It’s a good little gig and a fun program,” WAC State Director and Pine Bluff Coach Eric Kestner told the Telegram.

As explained on wyomingacademicchallenge.com, the different community colleges in Wyoming host WAP contests from October to April every school year. Each contest consists of four or five rounds of questions. These rounds can be either oral tossup questions or written questions. 

During the contest, questions were asked in a trivia-style way. Each original question included a series of bonus questions that were asked if a team answered correctly. 

“It’s a fairly long season, with about one meet every month,” Kestner said. “It’s kind of fun because you know they’re all different community colleges from across the state. So you know the kids get to kind of see different campuses and get the opportunity for scholarships.

During the contest, students are grouped together in teams of four. The teams work together to answer the questions during each round. In each round, three teams compete against each other for points. The points earned during each round are then added together for a final score.

The questions cover a wide array of subject areas including, but not limited to, math, history, Shakespeare, science and mythology. 

“Each school kind of has its own little way to prepare,” Kestner said. “We buy practice questions that are similar to these in here. And we’ll practice in the morning just before school and just kind of do a run-through. But it’s hard to prepare for meets because it’s all just such a grab bag, general knowledge trivia. It’s not like there’s a big study book you can memorize all these questions out of, because it’s just you never know what’s going to come next.”

For the WAC schedule or to learn more about the program you can go to https://wyomingacademicchallenge.com or email Kestner at eric.kestner@laramie2.org.