Community School team wins Collier academic tournament

The two-day event concluded Saturday when a six-person team from Naples High School battled a four-person team from the Community School of Naples in a final round.

The Community School won by 12 points, taking take home $500 in prize money for their school.

Other schools competing in the event were St. John Neumann Catholic High School, Barron Collier High, Gulf Coast High, Immokalee High and Lely High. Teams included as many as six students with skills in areas from mathematics to language arts.

Bradford Bailey, a Naples High sophomore and one of his team's math and science experts, said the academic tournament is one place where students can be brainy.

"You can compete in sports and stuff, but as far as academics, this is really the only competition," Bradford said.

It's an opportunity for students to take each other on as teams, too, said Nina Ribinski, academic competition coordinator.

"It's a school team," she said. "They practice as a team."

But what they really want is to win, agreed the competition finalists.

On the Community School team, seniors Alex Wise, Kristen Turner and Brian Reale said their team shares the history and foreign language questions, but handed literature questions to Kristen. In addition to knowing about a variety of subjects, Kristen said the event also helps to build confidence, that is, confidence in one's own answer while racing to beat the other team to their buzzers.

She said she likes having others look at her and realize, "Like, wow, that was good," she said.

Another appealing thing about academic competition? Alex searched for a way to avoid saying "winning."

"Not losing," he offered instead.

Among the literature questions the students fielded on their way to finals included figuring out which of Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" characters are related and matching four female authors to their works.

In the final competition, questions ranged from asking the names of the rovers currently roving Mars, the true identities of literature's Three Musketeers and which three South American countries can claim a part of the Equator.

Sean Houton, a Naples High junior, likes that the competition's subjects are varied, he said. Other academic competitions, such as math society Mu Alpha Theta, only allow competition in one area, he points out.

Dan Kuehme, a Naples High junior, was his team's science expert with a willingness to also answer "general miscellaneous questions," he said. Like his teammates and competitors, he said the tournament gives high school students a chance to compete in a variety of subjects, rather than specializing in one subject.

"There's not much," he said, for "the kids at the schools competing at the higher level."

Naples High's team was Bradford Bailey, Sean Brown, Sean Houton, Kristen Welch and Dan Kuehme.

The Community School's team was Brian Reale, Chris Reale, Kristen Turner and Alex Wise.