- Easterly Parkway Elementary
- Easterly Parkway Elementary School
Quiz Bowl and Quiz Masters Teams Win Big
For some Park Forest Middle School students, trivia is no trivial matter.
Recently, the Quiz Bowl and Quiz Masters teams coached by Lori Brown and Tom Kellander notched impressive victories in nationwide tournaments. The Quiz Masters sixth graders won the America Answers Fall competition for fifth/sixth grade, beating out 112 schools from 19 states.
“I wasn't expecting that high of a score and it kind of surprised me, but I was really happy,” sixth-grader Luke Bradbury said.
For their part, the Quiz Bowl seventh and eighth graders bested 40 schools to win the Fall 2020 3-2-1 competition.
“It felt great,” seventh-grader Elliott Mathews said. “It's amazing to know that you're a member of the best Quiz Bowl team in the country.”
Team members said they enjoyed banding together to match wits with their peers across the country.
“I personally really like that everyone on the Quiz Bowl team has some amount of input in finding the answer and it's not just one person carrying the team or doing all the work,” eighth-grader Soren Estep said.
“We get to work together as a team with our friends,” seventh-grader Aaron Le said.
“I like that everyone can share their thoughts, and that there is time for the team to talk about the question and to choose the best answer,” sixth-grader Betty Nowlin said.
“I liked the feeling of a team, that we are in this together,” sixth-grader Safa Ali said.
That sense of camaraderie extends to their coaches as well.
“Lori and I are so very proud of these students,” Kellander said. “What a great group of kids we have at PFMS.”
Brown noted “the depth of knowledge of this group continues to amaze me.”
“It is also impressive how the teammates recognize and incorporate each other's strengths into their performance,” she said. “And they do this all despite the challenges of being remote.”
Quiz Bowl
Joseph Brannick, Ryan Brown, Aaron Chen, Soren Estep, Ryan Evanego, Ella George, Rayansh Giri, Hannah Kifer, Aaron Le, Aidan Le, Ian Lei, Lucy Shaffer-Manhart, Elliott Mathews, Isabelle McSweeney, Dash Nealon, Ryan O’Donnell, Noah Radio, Lacey Sheaffer, Olivia Shen, Nick Shetler, Nate Tranell, Leo Wang, Melinda Wu, Amber Yang, Grace Yang, Isabella Zeman, Chase Zhou
Quiz Masters
Safa Ali, Ian Ballora-Wang, Luke Bradbury, Natalie Branstetter, Gilli Cozine, Helen Kifer, Ali Ko, Rebecca Lucy, Nicholas McSweeney, Baird Murray-Wright, Dasha Nekrutenko, Betty Nowlin, Esme Shea, Sophia Seidel, Michael Shea, Fiona Treece, Shannon Wang, Sarah Yang, Aaron Zhang, Daniel Zhang, Evan Zorn
By Chris Rosenblum