Three in a row!!!
It was not joke on April 1 st . For the third year in a row, and the ninth time in the thirteen years that Markesan has been a part of the Trailways Conference the Markesan
Academic has gone to the annual Academic Bowl Meet and come home conference champions.
The competition was hosted by Horicon high school this year. The competition focuses on three broad areas, science, social studies, and language arts. Within each areas are subcategories. In Science students are tested in the area of physics, chemistry, biology, and physical science. In Social studies tests include US history, world history, geography, and civics. Finally, in language arts the focus is American literature, novels, grammar, and a broad category called potpourri. There is an additional topic dealing with current events that is part of the team competition. The competition is broken into two types of tests. In the first type students take individual tests in one of the subcategories. Following the individual tests teams of students from each school compete head-to-head in answering questions from one of the three general categories and current events.
This year thirteen schools from our conference attended. Once again, Markesan came home with the trophy. William’s Bay took second while Central Wisconsin
Christian took third. Each school’s team is based on a minimum of three students from each grade level and three additional students from any level. The students on the Markesan team were selected based upon past performances, input from the teaching staff, and input from senior team members. Using that formula our team performed exceptionally well with all fifteen team members placing in the individual categories and three out of the four teams taking either first or second in the team competition.
Coming home with first place medals (subcategory test they took are in parentheses) were Sara Wendt (Chemistry), Johanna Zastrow (American Literature), Emily Waite (Novels), Landon Leedle (Civics), Matt Rowell (World History), and Justin Jahnke (US History). Second place finishers included Bryce Leedle (Biology), Kade
Muehlenhaupt (Chemistry), Meriah Abendroth (physical science), Hannah Whitney (Grammar), and Nara Shin (World History). Kailie Krombos (Potpourri), Hannah Brooks
(Novels), Sam Kruger (Physics) took third while Liz Zimmerman (Geography) took a fourth.
In the team competition the science team took second while Princeton took first. Both the English and Social Studies team took first place. Overall Markesan accumulated 548 points while second place finisher Williams Bay ended the evening with 500 points and Central Wisconsin Christian had 394 points.
The Academic Team adviser attributes Markesan’s continued success to three main factors. One is simply the quality of students. When asked to join the team they are
told they are expected to win and to prepare for that event. The students take that challenge to heart and work for their success. The second factor are the parents. The parents of these students must have done an incredible job in raising their kids to be willing to put in the time and effort to become successful. The third factor are the
teachers at Markesan. Without the teachers’ instilling knowledge and work ethics our students would not be performing to the level they currently are.