duPont Manual captures fifth National Journalism Quiz Bowl win in Seattle

Students from duPont Manual High School in Louisville, Kentucky were named National Journalism Quiz Bowl champions on April 26 at the Spring JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention in Seattle.

The winning team featured four students representing duPont, senior Grace Fridy, junior Abby Prather and sophomores Grady Amick and Isabella Shory. The team is advised by Liz Palmer. The team’s other journalism advisers are Matt Rhinehart, Kristopher Abplanalp and Margaret Mattingly.

“It was really great last time,” Shory said. “Last time, I think was a lot more nervous about it, since it was my first time, but this time, I think I was able to let go and just kind of enjoy the experience, and it didn’t really matter if we won. But I was very happy.”

“We have a lot of preparatory documents, just because our school has been doing this for over a decade, so we have a lot of practice questions and all that jazz,” Fridy said. “We use those practice questions and we get together, ideally, maybe once or twice a week for the month or so leading up to the conference to practice. And then once we get to the conference, we just do everything we can to make sure that we’ve got a good attitude and are practicing as much as possible.”

To determine the initial seeding of the 31 competing teams, the teams of four students took an online qualifying test on April 25. The next day, the top 16 qualifying teams met for rapid-fire buzzer rounds, answering questions pertaining to current events, American history, journalism law, media terminology and civics. The team that scored the highest of 10 questions proceeded to the next round and for the final round, the winner had to score the highest out of 20 questions.

The final matchup between duPont and The Harker School in San Jose, California included 20 questions. At the outset of the competition, duPont was seeded third and challenger Harker was seeded fourth. The final score was duPont 8, Harker 3.

This is the fifth time a duPont Manual team has won Quiz Bowl with previous victories in fall 2023 in Boston, spring 2023 in San Francisco, fall 2014 in Washington, D.C. and spring 2014 in San Diego.

The 16 finalist teams:

Palo Alto (California) High School

The Harker School (#1), San Jose, California

The Harker School (#2), San Jose, California

The Harker School (#3), San Jose, California

Francis Howell North High School (#1), Saint Charles, Missouri

Francis Howell North High School (#2), Saint Charles, Missouri

Carlmont High School (#1), Belmont, California

Carlmont High School (#2), Belmont, California

Carlmont High School (#3), Belmont, California

Branham High School, San Jose, California

West Linn (Oregon) High School

Archbishop Riordan High School, San Francisco, California

Liberty High School, Lake Saint Louis, Missouri

Lincoln High School, Portland, Oregon

Delta (Colorado) High School

DuPont Manual High School, Louisville, Kentucky

Cover photo: Abby Prather, Isabella Shory, Grace Fridy, Grady Amick