School of the Ozarks students received the third-place title for the State Scholar Bowl competition. Pictured from left to right: Sophia Osborne, Lilly Barnes, Alieah Youngblood, Leah McBride, Scott McElvain, John Carswell, Jude Healey, Caleb Martin, and JoElla Carey.

POINT LOOKOUT, MO. — School of the Ozarks Upper School students traveled to Columbia, Missouri, for the State Scholar Bowl competition on May 6. Following the competition, School of the Ozarks students received the third-place title for the state competition.

Scholar bowl is a game in which two teams compete head-to-head to answer questions from all areas of knowledge, including history, literature, science, fine arts, current events, popular culture, sports, and more. The defining feature of tournament is the use of a “buzzer system” that lets players interrupt the reading of a question when they know the answer.

The School of the Ozarks State Scholar Bowl competitors included the following: Lilly Barnes, JoElla Carey, John Carswell, Jude Healey, Caleb Martin, Leah McBride, Sophia Osborne, and Alieah Youngblood.

“Jude Healey was our only senior and did a phenomenal job leading our team through each round,” said Dr. Scott McElvain, assistant to the dean of the lab school. “His relaxed and calm demeanor was greatly appreciated through the intense competitive atmosphere.”

“It was a delightful experience seeing these students succeed in the way they did this year,” McElvain said. “They represented School of the Ozarks all the way through this historic run for the S of O scholar bowl team. It couldn’t have happened to a better group of students.”

More about Scholar Bowl

The MSHSAA State Championship is held in early May. Teams are divided into six classes, each with eight districts. There were more than 70 teams statewide competing in the same class as School of the Ozarks. District tournaments are hosted in early April, with the winners of adjacent districts meeting in an after-school quarterfinal meet in a best two-of-three format to determine the four teams that go to the state finals.

Rounds are scheduled to run an hour each. District tournaments consist of three preliminary rounds followed by four team single elimination playoffs. If a district has only two or three teams, an alternate schedule specified by MSHSAA is used instead. The state tournament was run the same way when it had eight teams, but now consists of a four-team round robin to seed the championship game and third place game.