High School Academic Pyramid Questions
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| President or CEO | Mike Cheyne (President and Acting Chief Editor), Tommy Casalaspi (Vice President), Jacob O'Rourke (Orders and Host Contact), Shawn Pickrell (Treasurer), Jonathan Ratliff (Chief Technical Officer) | |||
| Location: | Frederick, MD | |||
| Status | Defunct | |||
HSAPQ (High School Academic Pyramid Questions) was a quiz bowl question writing company active from 2008 to 2017.
History
HSAPQ started in 2008 and merged with the Scholastic Bowl Company of Virginia the following year.
In the 2008-09 season, HSAPQ produced four ACF-format sets, one Four-Quarter format set, and two old-NSC-format sets of distinct material for invitationals. In 2009-10 there were three ACF-format invitationals, in 2010-11 through 2012-2013 there were two, and in 2013-2014 there was one. Various four-quarter and custom format sets were produced each year using the VHSL questions as a base.
From 2009, HSAPQ provided questions for VHSL; their VHSL questions have been lauded by schools such as Maggie Walker and Christiansburg for their improved quality. From 2011 to 2014, HSAPQ was the question provider for the National History Bowl, and produced its qualifying sets and the Bee as well. HSAPQ's VHSL questions formed the basis of the official state championship sets provided to Ohio and Michigan in 2013.
From 2010 to 2016, HSAPQ ran the National All-Star Academic Tournament each June for all-star teams from individual states or national provinces.
In 2014, HSAPQ used VHSL questions as the base for new HSAPQ Regionals and HSAPQ State championship tournaments in New York, Maryland, North Carolina, California, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C.
In the spring of 2017, HSAPQ's leadership, including President Mike Cheyne, Vice President Tommy Casalaspi, and Secretary/Treasurer Shawn Pickrell, decided to end HSAPQ's involvement in question writing due to personal commitments. The contract for VHSL questions was transferred to NAQT. Fred Morlan formed IQBT to take over directing NASAT in the spring of 2018.
Editors
In 2014-2015, the editors for HSAPQ were:
- Matt Bollinger (President (since March 5, 2015); mythology subject editor; set editor for tournament set & NASAT)
- Tommy Casalaspi (Vice President & Chief Editor (since March 5, 2015); literature subject editor)
- Matt Weiner (History, religion, philosophy, social science, geography, current events, trash, general knowledge, and foreign language subject editor; set editor for VHSL and NHBB sets) - until the 5th of March Incident
- Auroni Gupta (arts subject editor)
- Joelle Smart (biology subject editor)
- Cody Voight (non-biology science subject editor)
- Dwight Wynne (math calculation subject editor)
Writers
In 2013-2014, 34 writers contributed 20 or more questions to HSAPQ sets, and 90 writers contributed at least 1 question. A not-up-to-date list of HSAPQ writers may be found at http://www.hsapq.com/members .