On Tuesday, Mar. 28, a bus was filled with high schoolers and driven across the state to our great Capitol. Some of these students came empty-handed and left with a trophy and the pride of winning a state championship. These students were seniors Afton Gast and Charlie Anderson, and juniors Owen Sondag, Hume Eide, and Dylan Demers.
Knowledge Bowl has had a great year. They did lose EDC to South High School, but they persevered and won state anyways. They often placed first in competitions, and had great attitudes even if they didn’t. They have good humor about everything and are very interested in learning more and more. “It was challenging, fun, and a good opportunity to learn and use some really random information,” said junior Dylan Demers.
The knowledge bowl team is composed of people with different skill sets. Mr. Kloster said the team is all fairly well rounded, despite some having specific skills. For example, Gast is considered a literature buff and Demers is more historically oriented. Despite some specialities, they all have a good set of skills. This ensures that all topics are covered and everyone contributes to the victory.
The State Knowledge Bowl competition had two rounds. The first round is a voter round, where there are 5 questions from 5 categories: English, math, science, current events, and electives. The teams have 30 seconds (60 for math) to vote in their answers. This round has one point for a correct answer, and none taken off for an incorrect answer. The second round is the Lightning round, with 25 questions. The questions have no categories, so they could be anything the question-makers want. The top three teams of the first round advance and face off. This round is buzzer-based and a lot more competitive. Teams get two points for answering correctly and no points for no answer, but they lose a point if they answer incorrectly.

The second round was more difficult, as North was against Red River and South, two very smart teams. The round was nerve-wracking for the coaches and the students, but turned into hesitant celebration halfway through. Mr. Kloster, however, said he didn’t ever have a doubt. “I thought we were as good, if not better, than any other team there.”
Despite the stress of the second round, North knocked it out of the park. By the 20th question, they could not have lost unless they got every answer incorrect. “We easily qualified for the first round so I wasn’t too stressed. During the lightning round everyone was somewhat afraid to buzz, including me, and we stuck to our guts and buzzed in. By question 15 we knew that we were almost guaranteed a win so we just kept calm and didn’t risk anything” said Demers.
They wisely decided to not buzz in for the last few questions, except for the last one. The last question was buzzed in by Demers and answered completely incorrectly. In fact, the answer was not even in the ballpark of what the question was asking.
“Todd Kloster,” who is Mr. Kloster’s brother (and an amazing singer, go check him out) was the answer from Demers. Demers and Eide enjoy trolling Mr. Kloster about his brother’s music and their odd relationship. “Yeah, Dylan won’t be invited back anytime soon,” said Kloster. He also refused to comment on how he feels about Todd Kloster’s music.
Overall, for the first round, North and South tied for first at 17 points, and Red River was just behind them at 15.
For the second round, North won by 5 points, having 14 points compared to South’s 9 and Red River’s 7. North pushed through despite the hard competition and their nerves. Hume Eide said: “I tried not to be overconfident, because I knew the competition we had was rough. We would have preferred to not have to compete against South in the lightning round, but I decided not to worry about South and instead focus on my own team.”
“It was very rewarding for us to win state. We had an excellent team and seeing all of our efforts being paid off was great. This was the first time we had won a lightning round (usually South won that round) so it was awesome that the time we finally won was at state,” said Demers.
Knowledge bowl is a great way to be in a club and have fun at the same time. Next year, pop by a few meetings and have fun while learning random trivia!