Educational Service Unit

The Educational Service Unit "provide[s] educational services to thirteen school districts in south-central and southwestern Nebraska." Their mission "is to provide visionary leadership and quality educational services in partnership with member schools to achieve excellence in education." The list of the ESUs can be found here.

The various ESUs organize bad quizbowl tournaments in their respective districts as well as host workshops (non-quizbowl related), host problem solving seminars, promote honors programs, host golf tournaments, run chess tournaments, and have superman teach in classrooms.

According to this photo a competition in February 2014 in ESU #11 featured teams of six standing up (and sometimes sitting down) to buzz in (it appears that the buzzer lights are on some sort of pole as this photo demonstrates and the competition took place in the Phelps County Museum. It appears that at least 3-4 judges are necessary to run the match. According to this photo there are 12 toss-ups/bonuses per match. According to this photo each team member receives a medal as a prize.

There is no evidence on the ESU #6 facebook page, the ESU #4 facebook page, or the ESU #13 website that they are involved in any quiz bowl activities.

2014 ESU #8 HS results can be found here.

More information about ESU #11 QB can be found here.

Results from the ESU #17 "Valentine Quiz Bowl" on April 23, 2013 can be found here.

According to this, many of the ESU tournaments use Academic Hallmarks questions.

According to this 2012 article regarding quiz bowl in ESU #2, "Points are scored by correct answers to questions; each question has a pre-stated value, and teams have only 15 seconds to respond. The questions range from trivial (easier), with 5 points for a correct answer, to profound (more difficult), with 10 points for a correct answer, and cover all academic disciplines: language arts, mathematics, science and social studies. "...."Academic Quiz Bowl promotes quick recall of general knowledge facts through a quiz bowl format similar to that used by the College Bowl Company, which sponsored a popular radio program begun in 1953, which became an equally popular television series from 1959 - 1970. Following its cancellation on television, the game reappeared on college campuses through an affiliation with the Association of College Unions International in 1977 until 2008"

According to this regarding the 2014 ESU #9, the entry fee is $65 per team, "The questions will range from the trivial to the profound and cover all areas of academic knowledge", "After the toss-up is given, 15 seconds will be allowed for any team member to respond", the player must wait until his/her school name and position is completely called before giving the answer", "The team members have 15 seconds to confer on bonus questions", "Any team member from the team receiving a bonus question may ask for a repeat of the bonus question as long as it takes place during the 15 second conferring time", the bonuses are bounced back, "Pencil and paper are never allowed during toss-up questions", and "The round will be stopped if [a specified] difference in team score occurs [during the game]".

Sample elementary school questions for ESU can be found here

Sample middle school questions for ESU can be found here

Sample high school questions for ESU can be found here

Results for tournaments that used NAQT speedchecks can be found here: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013