February 23, 2006

By Diane Chiddister

In scientific jargon, the term “squamous” is used to describe what kind of surface?

What’s the title of Booth Tarkington’s celebrated novel about Willie Baxter?

How much will the gas for a 120-mile trip cost at $1.18 per gallon if the car gets 24 miles per gallon? (See answers at end of this article.)

Last Saturday, most high school students would not have been sitting around on a day off from school trying to nail questions like these.

But a surprising number of young people — about 100 — were doing just that, testing their memories and brain power at Yellow Springs High School. The students, divided into about 24 teams of four, were taking part in the annual Quick Recall tournament sponsored by the YSHS Quick Recall team.

The students hailed from Little Miami, Miami East, Miami Valley, Cedarville, Tipp City, Lancaster, Columbus Alternative, Wayne, St. Charles, Northwestern and Yellow Springs High Schools. At the end of the day, Tipp City won the tournament.

The tournament began in the morning, when the teams competed with each other in groups of four to answer questions from the fields of literature, math, biology, geography, physical sciences, world history and American government, among others, according to YSHS team advisor Joyce McCurdy. In those rounds, students were allowed to confer with other team members and write down their answers in a specified time period.

In the afternoon, winners of the first round met again, this time in a more high-pressure competition, complete with buzzers and sudden-death playoffs.

If it all looked a bit like “Jeopardy,” well, that’s no surprise, said McCurdy, who said she eats dinner each night while watching the quiz show.

“It’s a disease,” she said about her love of trivia.

And it’s also fun, said YSHS senior Carey Dixon, a member of the high school’s first team, who said he also likes watching the quiz show. Because Dixon and fellow seniors Tina Chen and Tina Peters organized the tournament for their senior project, the YSHS first team didn’t compete on Saturday, although the YSHS sophomore team did. This is the sixth year that senior team members have taken on organizing responsibilities, McCurdy said.

Organizing Saturday’s event meant coming up with some of the questions, contacting high schools to see who was coming and keeping track of participants, arranging food, and making sure the tournament itself ran smoothly, Dixon said.

It was a lot of work, but in return, the event raised money for the YSHS team to compete in next year’s events, which typically charge an entry fee of $50 for a school’s first team and $40 for its second.

The YSHS Quick Recall team treasury is down to $11, according to McCurdy. “We need this tournament if we’re going to go to matches next year,” she said.

This year, the YSHS teams competed at Sidney and at Tipp City, along with two matches in a Dayton league. The first team is small and is composed of seniors Dixon, Chen, Peters, Aaron Zaremsky and Ian Ferguson and junior Mori Rothman. The school also has a “powerhouse” group of sophomores who form the sophomore team, McCurdy said. The sophomore team includes Jesse Rothman, Drew Stratton, Peter Lovering, Peter Keahey, Todd Sheets, Rosa Dixon, Miriam Barcus, Caroline Kent, Anne Forster and Kyle and Max Buchwalder.

McCurdy has been sponsoring the Quick Recall team for about 20 years, and she does it because she enjoys it, she said. She said she appreciates her student team members and also community members who volunteer their time to read questions for the tournament. On Saturday, volunteer readers included Aurelia Blake, Bob and Jane Scott, Nancy Hesz and Gary Dixon.

(Answers, from top: a flat surface, Seventeen and $5.90 per gallon.)

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com