RALEIGH - A hard-fought battle for the 2008 N.C. History Bowl championship came to a blazing finish late this afternoon with West Craven Middle School of New Bern winning the consistently tough competition against finalist McDougle Middle School of Chapel Hill.
Students from seven middle schools across the state (including two from the Craven County/New Bern area) competed today in the finals at the N.C. Museum of History in downtown Raleigh. The score of the championship game, which started at 1:30 p.m., was 155-85.
Four team members received coveted trophies to take back home and display proudly at their school. David Latham, N.C. Historic Sites Museum and Visitor Services chief, presented the awards to the winning team along with Ruthann Bond, president of the N.C. Division of United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), a longtime competition sponsor. The N.C. Museum of History also sponsored this year’s N.C. History Bowl, along with the State Historic Sites division and the UDC.
The West Craven team members are Xavier Collins, Aspyn Fulcher, Sara Neilson and Sarah Richardson. The coach is David Rackley. The winning team received a $200 cash award.
The runner-up team received a $100 cash award. Team members are William Knapp, Chris Chiesa, Chris Rupert and Hugo Sowder; their coaches are Cissy O’Neal and Louise Peters.
Throughout the school year, teams of eighth graders have been feverishly studying North Carolina history and competing in regional history bowls sponsored by the Historic Sites division. Schools competed against one another in paired matches featuring teams of four students with one alternate answering questions from a moderator. West Craven Middle School was sponsored in the tournament by the Aycock Birthplace and CSS Neuse State Historic Sites. McDougle Middle School’s sponsors were the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum and Alamance Battleground State Historic Sites.
On Tuesday, the teams arrived in Raleigh and attended a reception hosted by the UDC. The students then toured the capitol area.
Other teams competing this year were from Camden County Middle School, Kannapolis Middle School, Magellan Charter School (Raleigh), Grover C. Fields Middle School (New Bern) and Reid Ross Classical School (Fayetteville).
N.C. Historic Sites is a unit of the Office of Archives and History, part of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, a state agency dedicated to the promotion and protection of North Carolina’s arts, history and culture. The program of 27 state historic sites, stretching from the mountains to the coast, can be visited on-line at http://www.nchistoricsites.org. For more information on the N.C. History Bowl, please contact N.C. History Bowl coordinator Jann Brown at 252-526-9600 or 252-526-7075.
Administered by the Division of State Historic Sites, the N.C. History Bowl is one of many programs the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources is sponsoring under its 2008 theme of “Telling Our Stories.” For more information, visit www.ncculture.com.