Nixa High School’s scholar bowl recently placed second in Republic for the Central Ozarks Conference (COC) in varsity as well as the junior varsity teams. The club has a competitive format in which students answer difficult trivia questions on several widely ranging topics. Students meet on Tuesdays after school until 3:30 p.m. to practice trivia together in the library.  The group competes about six to seven times throughout the school year. Competitions last around four hours, two of which consist of the group actively competing against opposing school districts. 

   There are many different topics for trivia in Scholar Bowl that the group frequently studies for competitions, such as the recent Central Ozarks Conference. Many different topics are covered during practices. This allows the group to study as many categories of trivia as they can, preparing them for competitions that do not disclose the topics for trivia.

    “It’s a lot of pop culture,” junior Eli Zsiga said.

   Zsiga has been part of the Scholar Bowl team for about two years and said he enjoys being a part of the group. Scholar Bowl competes many times throughout the school year. In competitions, Scholar Bowl competitors work together in teams of four against other schools in order to answer questions that have been presented to them.

   “We all have our own specialties, but we all just work together to answer a bunch of questions,” junior Kendall Bourbon said. “We just study a really broad variety of topics at practice.”

   Some describe Scholar Bowl as a game show without the live broadcast aspect, as it has a similar format to popular television shows such as “Jeopardy” or “Family Feud.” Some topics the team practices include English literature, calculus and world history.

   The Scholar Bowl team has competed in a history bowl over the last few years, where they get quizzed on historical and civic topics, and categories for competition can at times be very specific.

   “When we went to the history bowl, one of the categories was literally just Supreme Court,” Bourbon said.

   There is a rather vast variety of categories Scholar Bowl contestants could be asked about during the almost monthly competitions that the group attends.

   Nixa High School librarian Julie Staats runs the club and proctors the group during their weekly practices. In practice, students write the answers to questions presented by Staats, they then review the answers as a group. Scholar Bowl allows students to expand their understanding of topics they may not have been knowledgeable about prior to joining, by widening their horizons on the information presented to them, both at practices and competitions.

   Scholar Bowl has both Varsity and Junior Varsity teams that compete throughout the school year at events such as History Bowl and the Central Ozarks Conference, or COC.

   The group is open to anyone who is curious about joining the club.

   “Everybody’s welcome,” Staats said. “There’s not a tryout or anything. You show up, and if you answer questions you get to compete at tournaments.”