Academic Hallmarks
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| President or CEO | unknown leadership | |||
| Location: | Durango, CO | |||
| Status | {{{status}}} | |||
Academic Hallmarks, sometimes known as Great Auk is a question writing company based in Durango, Colorado. They supply awful questions to several invitational tournaments, including Knowledge Bowl events in several states where it is dominant quizbowl format. From 1983 until 2013 they organized the online Knowledge Master Open competition, and are currently developing the Knowledge Master Scholar program, whatever that is.
AH has no affiliation with Avery Enterprises, but is oftentimes confused with it by novice QBWiki editors due to both being bad quizbowl providers who are based in Colorado and have two-word names beginning with "A."
Events using Auk questions
(Some of these events may be defunct)
Academic Hallmarks operates in perhaps even more of an "alternate universe" to the good quizbowl scene than Questions Unlimited does, with the names of events on its website sometimes being the only evidence that the events, or any kind of quizbowl circuit in the state in which the event is listed as taking place, exist at all. Many events also remain on its calendar long after they abandon AH questions. Thus, there is little to no information available on what most of the below tournaments are; some notes are attached.
The calendar has disappeared from the website as of the 2013-2014 competition year. In 2012-2013, it listed the following events:
- Academic Games Tournament, Syria
- Academic Quiz League, TX
- AEA 11 Knowledge Bowl, IA
- Baton Rouge Archdiocese Academic Meet, LA
- Bel Air Annual Academic Tournament, MD (has actually used NAQT questions for several years)
- Black Hills Area Knowledge Bowl, SD
- Central American Knowledge Bowl
- Colbert County Academic Competition, AL
- Colorado Knowledge Bowl
- EMAC Academic Games, Egypt
- High Q Conference, FL
- H.S. Quiz Bowl Challenge for Excellence, OH (no info on any tournament by this name)
- ISAC Tournament, Kuwait
- Lassen County Academic Olympics, CA (no mentions of this event running later than 2007)
- MacDonald's State Championship Quiz Bowl, MI (has actually used HSAPQ questions since 2013)
- Mid-Missouri Quiz Bowl (no evidence that any tournament by this name has ever actually existed)
- Minnesota Knowledge Bowl
- Murray State Univ. Collegiate Tournament, KY
- Nebraska ESU Quiz Bowl
- NEO A&M Quiz Bowl, OK
- Nevada State Knowledge Bowl
- New Frontier Academic Conference, OK
- News Channel Three Knowledge Bowl, TN
- Plevna Academic Invitational, MT
- Pride of Iowa Conference
- Regional Quiz Bowl, NY
- Richland County Schools Knowledge Bowl, SC
- Scholastic Challenge, PA
- SCIL Academic Tournament, NJ (last reference to this being held in 2011)
- Three Rivers Junior High League
- Tombstone Invitational Knowledge Bowl, AZ (no evidence that this actually exists)
- Tri-State Middle School Scholar's Bowl, MS
- Vermont Scholar's Bowl (still listed despite switching to NAQT questions in 2007!)
- Washington State Knowledge Bowl
- WDBJ Scholastic Competition, VA
- West Virginia State Academic Bowl (has actually used NAQT questions for the past several years)
- WGEM Academic Competition, IL
- Wyoming Academic Challenge