Marshall County 4-H’ers bring home national quiz bowl championship

Thursday, October 20, 2016

A group of 4-H’ers from Marshall County demonstrated their brain power at the recent National 4-H Livestock Quiz Bowl and captured the national title, the first ever won by an Oklahoma team.

Team members Rio Bonham, Will Shelby, J.B. Bell and Chancey Pearson were named champions at the state-level competition at State 4-H Roundup earlier this year, which is what qualified them to compete in the national championship.

David Sorrell, Oklahoma State University Cooperative Extension agriculture/4-H educator and county Extension director in Marshall County, coached the team as they went undefeated in the double-elimination national competition that took place during the Arksarben Stock Show and Rodeo in Omaha, Nebraska.

Sorrell said the team has been working hard for the past few months to prepare for the quiz bowl and has been studying questions spanning four meat animal species (cattle, swine, sheep and goats), as well as topics covering health, nutrition, anatomy, reproduction, management and the processing industry.

In addition, team members demonstrated their ability in decision making, problem solving, critical thinking, self-confidence and teamwork.

“On the state level, we have a study list of questions we used for the competition at Roundup. Then, to prepare for the national competition, we gleaned about 1,000 additional questions from a list of resources,” Sorrell said. “It was much more challenging and time consuming for our team members.”

During the competition, team members answer individual question, along with team questions and toss-up questions, along with bonus questions. Sorrell said teams receive penalties and point deductions for wrong answers and buzzing in incorrectly.

During the competition, the foursome defeated teams from Alabama, Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Tennessee and Wisconsin. They defeated 16 teams at the state competition.

Marshall County also is home to the state reserve champion quiz bowl team, comprised of Kristen Chapa, Ashlynn Arnold, Trey Hughes and Janna Reid. This team of 4-H’ers also traveled to Nebraska to represent Oklahoma and compete in the national event. They sailed through the first round of competition, but did not advance further.

“I’m really proud of all of our youth who participated in the national competition. They worked hard and did a great job of representing Marshall County and the state of Oklahoma,” Sorrell said. “This event has gone on for 10 years and we’re very excited to bring home the national championship.”