On any given afternoon, most of ConVal’s teams can be found in the gym, hitting the snow, on the wrestling mats, or running indoor track. But members of one of ConVal’s highly competitive teams are hunkered down in a basement social studies classroom, their thumbs hovered over electronic buzzers.
These are the members of ConVal’s Quiz Team.
Captain Ben Michaud, a senior, thinks the team has a chance to do really well this year.
“We’re a pretty tight-knit group and we have a lot of potential to go far,” he said. “We’ll see what happens.”
The Quiz Team will compete on the New Hampshire PBS show “Granite State Challenge” on Sunday, March 8, at 8:30 p.m. against Merrimack High School.
Michaud is the only team member who returned this year.
“Last year we showed a lot of potential, but we weren’t able to get it done in the end. We have a fresh new group of faces this year, so we’re looking to do some damage,” he said.
“Granite State Challenge,” a trivia competition that pits New Hampshire high schools against one another in a battle of wits, has been airing since 1984. So far, 21 different high schools have won the championship trophy.
Each year, Quiz Team coaches Eric Bowman and Chris Heider, who both teach social studies at ConVal, administer a qualifying test to potential team members.
“We make up a test every year, and every student who wants to try out takes it, and we go by the highest scores,” Bowman said.
Heider says the questions are “truly trivia” and not geared toward academia.
“It’s pop culture, but it’s also science, math, history, especially state history,” Heider said. “It’s not based on the high school curriculum, because we have freshman, and they would not have had the opportunity to learn anything yet.”
Every Quiz Team in the state takes the Granite State Challenge qualifying test in November and is then ranked against other schools according to their scores. After qualifying, ConVal competed in an initial round last month.
Michaud said his friend Lukas Baker recruited him in his junior year.
“Lukas made me do it last year, and it turns out I’m really good at it, and it’s a lot of fun,” Michaud said.
Freshman Ben Ferrisi is carrying on a family tradition.
“My dad competed in Granite State Challenge, too, for Winnisquam High School, so it’s pretty cool. My dad’s team won a round, but back then they did it only every other year, so he could only compete as a sophomore, and then as a senior. It’s not like now when it’s every year,” Ferrisi said.
Ferrisi said that, unlike when his dad competed, players can now hit the buzzer before the presenter finishes reading the question.
“Now you don’t have to wait for them to finish reading. It makes it a better game,” Ferrisi said.
He said his family attends a trivia night in Newbury every Tuesday night.
“I love trivia,” he added.
Iris Palmer, a junior, is also a huge trivia buff.
“It’s really fun. I go to trivia at Mi Jalisco every Monday night and I love it,” she said.
Sophomore Colin Mayberry said Michaud recruited him.
“Ben showed me a video and it looked really fun. I thought it would look good on my college resume, too,” Mayberry said.
Junior Vincent Hollenbeck got involved because he loves history.
“I thought it sounded fun that there is a club that does history trivia, and it turns out I’m pretty decent at it,” he said.
The team started practicing in October to prepare for the November qualifying test, and did well enough to compete in an initial round of the show in early January.
At team practice, Bowman and Heider read questions to the group and members practice using the equipment, including the all-important timing of hitting the buzzer.
“You don’t want to hit it too early or too late,” Ferrisi said.
In addition to team practices, members hone up on trivia in various ways. Michaud watches videos of Granite State Challenge rounds from previous years to prepare.
“I think I have memorized all last season,” he said. “Sometimes they do re-use questions.”
All team members say the experience of competing at the NH PBS studio in Durham was “fun but stressful.”
“Everyone contributed, and we all had a good time, ” Mayberry said.
Ferrisi said he tried to be “stoic” during the competition, adding, “I tried really hard to show no emotion.”
The team came highly prepared for the event.
“We were totally ready about an hour before it actually started,” Bowman said. “Everyone takes it pretty seriously.”
For more information about Granite State Challenge on NH PBS, go to nhpbs.org/gsc/.