Last
Saturday morning, in a large conference room on the campus of Georgetown
University in Washington DC, four Walpole High School seniors participated in
the 2013 Academic WorldQuest National Competition. This is the second year in a row that Jake
Kelsey, Ross Bubly, Jungbin Lim, and Kevin Delaney won the Massachusetts state
competition and earned a trip to DC.
Working as a team, the foursome answered a total of 100 questions in 10 different
categories ranging from U.S. Economic Competitiveness to Geography to the
Middle East.
With forty schools in attendance from all over the country, the
competition was fierce. Although Walpole
did not earn a spot in the top three, the students and their teacher-chaperone,
Mr. Jeffrey Szymanski, are pleased with their accomplishments. “These kids are real self-starters”,
Szymanski said. “They formed this team
on their own in their junior year, strategically divided up their preparation,
and sought out a faculty member to advise them.”
Szymanski
noted it was his department chair in social studies, Mr. Tom Morris, who
advised the team for two years and attended the state competitions in Boston
this year and last as well as the 2012 national competition. “I was a pinch hitter, vowing to gladly
accompany the team to DC in 2013 if they won the state championship”, Szymanski
stated. “Jake sent me a one-liner e-mail
after the team won in Boston on April 6th that simply read, ‘see you
in DC.’ ”
The
four saw very little of DC in 2012 other than two embassies and the Georgetown
campus. WorldBoston paid for
transportation and hotel costs for one night in DC. This year, Walpole’s American Legion
generously donated $600 so the students could spend two nights in the city to see
some of the city’s attractions.
All
flew in to DC early Friday morning.
After a quick photo in front of the White House, the group walked to the
Capitol and received a tour from an intern in Senator Elizabeth Warren’s
office. They then watched from the House
gallery as their U.S Representatives debated the now infamous “sequester” to
stop the furloughing of air traffic controllers. Mr. Szymanski was pretty amazed at their
excitement. “These kids are real
political junkies, and they knew the names of many of the reps on the House
floor.”
After
Saturday’s competition, the students had plenty of free time to visit the
Smithsonian museums and the monuments.
It was an early flight home Sunday morning before returning to school
Monday, having made their parents and community extremely proud of their
success.
