By Steve Huffman
Salisbury Post
Students from Koontz Elementary won the first Region 7 Battle of the Books competition Friday in Statesville.
Members of the winning team ó Evan Dunn, Miranda Brady, Zane Gray, Callie Alexander, John Lewis Dunham, Roberta Moulton, Codie Smith and Mary Stoelting ó accumulated 306 points in the competition during which they were quizzed on 12 books they’d read and studied.
“Oh, they were extremely obscure questions,” said Pat Foley, media coordinator at Koontz.
She said the books that students were quizzed about were selected by members of the N.C. Library Association. Foley said the books were all chapter books and were about topics ranging from history to fantasy.
“They ran the whole gamut,” Foley said.
She said individual students ó only six of the eight team members competed in each round ó were asked questions about the books. If the individual student didn’t know the answer, he or she could turn to fellow team members for help.
In addition to answering questions about individual books, students also gave the name and author of the book they were asked about.
If one team couldn’t answer the questions, the questions were then passed to their competitors. Foley said the Koontz team scored especially well on that portion of the competition.
“We got a number of questions correct in the redirect portion,” she said.
Friday’s competition was held at the Statesville Civic Center. Koontz’s competition included schools representing the school systems of Watauga County, Burke County, Caldwell County, Iredell/Statesville, Mooresville, Catawba County, Hickory, Newton-Conover and Rowan-Salisbury.
In March, the Koontz team won a district title that included the other elementary schools in Rowan County. That competition was held at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College.
Foley said Koontz team members have been meeting and practicing three times a week since that district competition. “It’s just amazing their level of recall,” she said. “They’ve been reading and re-reading those books. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get an elementary school student to read a book more than once?”
Foley is the team’s head coach and she’s assisted by Barry Rymer, a second-grade teacher at Koontz.
She said the fact that the Koontz team won the competition is especially noteworthy considering that only three of the team members ó Dunn, Brady and Gray ó are fifth-graders. Alexander and Dunham are third-graders while Moulton, Smith and Stoelting are only in the second grade.Foley said all Koontz students were welcomed to tryout for the team.
This is the first year that a regional competition has been held for Battle of the Books. Foley said the Koontz team was presented a trophy that the school will keep for a year before returning it for next year’s competition.
“But we’ll always be the first to have our names on it,” Foley said of the trophy.
Contact Steve Huffman at 704-797-4222 or shuffman@salisburypost.com.