Under the headline Once again, Charles Wright earns crown at Knowledge Bowl, the News Tribune wrote a recent article about the CWA Knowledge Bowl team, noting that we’ve taken the 1A State Championship 4 out of the last 5 years (and they’ve won the state championship eight out of the last 13 years, too, coming in “only” second all the other years)!

Reading between the lines, one could sense the same attitude on the part of the News Tribune that was expressed to me a number of years ago by a CWA alum, “of COURSE we’re good at Knowledge Bowl! Academics is what we do…” On the one hand, it is really quite a compliment to be thought of as so obviously excellent that it is no surprise that the school dominates one and all at the state level in our size category in an academic competition (and while I’m bragging, I should mention that in local and regional meets, we more than hold our own against the largest schools as well). On the other hand, it seems more than a bit unfair, as it doesn’t acknowledge that excellence in any endeavor takes incredible effort and persistence. Our students, whether or not Knowledge Bowl competitors, work very hard at their academic studies, and thereby achieve great success — success beyond what most of their peers can aspire to. And the members of the Knowledge Bowl team hone their competitive skills by going well beyond the knowledge gained through their school work.

Former CWA history teacher Dick Neunherz first brought knowledge bowl to the school, and since his retirement, current history teacher John Lemma has picked up where “Doc” left off and continued the tradition of excellence in this area.

Perhaps because watching smart people perform is not as embedded in the psyche of the country as is watching those with physical prowess, and because the Knowledge Bowl team has been perennially so outstandingly successful, they didn’t get quite the same fanfare as did the boys basketball team when they brought home the state trophy. We’ll take the compliment, thank you, of the lack of surprise that we do so well in academic competition, but no one should overlook the hard work over many years to achieve that level of success.