Local teams in academic contest
Connellsville and Mount Pleasant high schools will be among 19 western Pennsylvania teams competing at the seventh annual Armstrong Academic Challenge. The daylong questions and answers contest will take place Saturday at Butler County Community College, Armstrong’s partner in the event.
The entire competition will be presented live on Armstrong’s local origination channel 20 starting at 8:30 a.m. Channel 20 will present replays of matches involving Connellsville and Mount Pleasant, as well as the semifinals and finals, during two weeks following the competition.
The semifinals and finals will also be presented statewide by the Pennsylvania Cable Network (PCN, channel 64) at a later date.
Connellsville’s first opponent will be the winner of the Grove City-Slippery Rock match at 1 p.m. Mount Pleasant will open against Conneaut Lake at 9:30 a.m.
The schools will compete for U.S. savings bonds for individual team members and scholarship money to be used by their schools.
Each match consists of three rounds of questions and a bonus question. Students will be tested on their knowledge of history, literature, mathematics, science, arts, languages, popular culture and current events.
According to Lori Kaczmarek, Armstrong’s marketing coordinator, “The Academic Challenge was created as a way to publicly and financially recognize the scholastic excellence of the students attending high schools in our service areas.”
The Connellsville team will consist of Tim Witt, Jason Shannon, Nick Bailey, Ryan Mastowski, J.D. Cramer and Chris Enany. John Tremba is the advisor.
Competing for Mount Pleasant will be Keith White, Catie Collins, Brenton Kemp and Amanda Wolk. Diane Pawlish is the team’s advisor. The four students placed second in last year’s competition.
The semifinal rounds are scheduled to start at 4:30 p.m.; the finals at 5:30 p.m. North Allegheny is the defending champion.
Viewers may also access live streaming video of the Academic Challenge by visiting the Butler cable system section www.armstrongonewire.com and clicking on the Ad Channel link.