Minooka Junior High School scholastic bowl team heads to state

Nine Minooka Junior High students will make the trip Friday to Peoria to compete in the state Scholastic Bowl competition for the second time in two years.

“It really says something that their academic knowledge has made it this far two years in a row from hundreds of schools,” said Darren Lustik, eighth-grade social studies teacher and Scholastic Bowl co-coach.

The fifth- through eighth-graders will compete in a style similar to “Jeopardy,” said Elizabeth Pyde, Spanish teacher and Lustik’s co-coach. There are two teams with five students apiece. The team with the highest score or the one to break 300 points wins, Pyde said. Sixteen students joined the Minooka team after tryouts in November.

“The kids we have are the ones that are studying and learning on their own outside of class,” Pyde said. “It’s a chance for them to show off the knowledge they already have.”

While Lustik and Pyde don’t necessarily teach the students new information, the team practices with questions that previously were asked in various categories, including math, science, language arts, social studies, current events, music and miscellaneous three times a week.

This is the fifth time the Minooka team has made it to the state competition in its 25 years of participating in the Scholastic Bowl. Last year, the students came in fourth place. The schools that are invited to the competition are pared down from about 200 schools, Lustik said.

“It’s quite remarkable,” Lustik said. “They’re very self-motivated. [It] shows a great deal of maturity.”

The Illinois Elementary School Association event takes place at 1 p.m. Friday at the Peoria Civic Center.