By Carolyn Lee
The Imperial Republican
Five teams in the SPVA conference will converge on Imperial March 13 for a Quiz Bowl tournament. This is the first time Chase County Schools (CCS) has hosted the tournament, according to coach Chelsea Zuege.    
The tournament will begin at 3 p.m. in the CCS auditorium and one classroom, Zuege said. It’s round robin, with the highest points scored determining the winner.
There are 10 students on each team, with six students playing at a time. Zuege said she puts a different combination of students in for each round, to give them experience.
The students will answer questions ordered from a company Zuege has used in the past. The questions cover a wide variety of subjects.
She gets the company’s software and uses the questions for practice, which usually occurs over the lunch hour.
The coach said the company keeps track of the questions sent out and used during various tournaments, so no school receives the same questions twice.
“The kids don’t see those questions again in meets,” she stated.
Judges are teachers and community members. There are announcers, content judges available if there are any challenges to questions or answers, procedural judges, moderators, scorers, door monitors, runners and persons manning the  tabulation room.
Zuege has been the only coach at CCS for Quiz Bowl, which has been a competitive event for about 10 years at CCS.
“I have to recruit students because they’re so busy,” she noted. “Kids who do quiz bowl tend to be very active in everything else.”
Schools competing March 13 besides CCS include Perkins County, Hershey, Sutherland and North Platte St. Pat’s. The tournament is open to the public.