Colorado Knowledge Bowl

Colorado Knowledge Bowl is a form of quizbowl played in Colorado. It runs on Academic Hallmarks (Great Auk) questions and can be considered bad quizbowl for this reason.

History

Knowledge Bowl was launched in 1978 by the San Juan Board of Cooperative Services of Durango, Colorado. It was response to a request by a group of area student body leaders who asked for some kind of competitive academic activity. The first meet was held in Pagosa Springs and involved just three high schools. Within two years, it evolved to include scores of invitational meets in addition to regional competitions and a Colorado state championship that has been held annually ever since.

The first statewide Colorado State Knowledge Bowl was held in 1978 at Fort Lewis College in Durango. Most of the competing teams that year came from schools in mountain districts. One of the few Colorado Front Range schools in the competition that year, Green Mountain High School in Jefferson County won the first statewide championship. Green Mountain would go on to triumph in three of the first four years of the competition, taking first place in 1980 and 1981 as well.

Around 1983, Bill Brown founded Academic Hallmarks after having worked with Colorado Knowledge Bowl. At some point AH took over responsibilities of writing questions.

Season Structure

(under construction) A team typically plays in around six meets a season, excluding "postseason" play[1]. Meets are mostly organized based on Colorado High School athletic association (CHSAA) conferences, however a number of invitations during the probably occur. At the end of the season regional competition based on (CHSAA) occurs, the results of which will determine participation in the State Meet.

Meet Format

In Colorado, Knowledge Bowl meets start off with the written round. This round comprises of 40 or 60 multiple choice questions. The teams can discuss content of questions only during the written round. Teams may have between 2 to 5 people, a number that is often dependent on school size. The scores from the written round determines which teams will compete against each other in the first oral round. There are usually four oral rounds during a meet and consist of forty or fifty questions each.

During oral rounds three teams compete against each other simultaneously in a single room. Only four members of a team may take part in these rounds, so if the team has more than four members, the other members may substitute in after half of the questions in that round.

The subject of each questions is announced before it is read. Teams can buzz at any time, even before the reader has finished reading the question. The team may not discuss the question, but they may decide who answers the question. In the Colorado Springs area meets, no talking period is allowed. However, teammates may use hand signals to determine who will answer.

A team that buzzes has 15 seconds to answer. If the first team that buzzes in answer incorrectly, either of the other two teams may ask the reader to finish the question and even repeat the question once. Use of paper is allowed during rounds for taking notes, computations, or keeping score.

After each round teams are reassigned to rooms according to their total oral and written scores. After the final round, the team with the highest cumulative score throughout the tournament wins the meet.

Results

Results from Knowledge Bowl competitions are apparently not posted on the internet, except for local press reports. The following is a rough summation of said data.

Class 5A

Year	Champion	Second	Third
2013	Fossil Ridge	Grand Junction	Fairview
2012	Grand Junction(or Fossil Ridge)?	Fairview
2011	Grand Junction
2010	Grand Junction
2009	Grand Junction
2008	Grand Junction
2007	Grand Junction
2006	Grand Junction

Class 4A

Year	Champion	Second	Third	Fourth
2013
2012	Palisade
2011	Palisade(?)		Windsor
2010	Palisade

Class 3A

Year	Champion	Second	Third	Fourth
2013	University
2012	Salida	Alamosa	Bayfield
2011	Bayfield	Estes Park
2010	University
2009	University
2008

Class 2A

Year	Champion	Second	Third	Fourth
2013
2012
2011
2008	Rocky Ford	Fountain Valley School	Custer County

Class A

Year	Champion	Second	Third	Fourth
2013	Ouray
2012		Ouray
2011
2010
2009	Sierra Grande