GHS earns state titles in English, Interdisciplinary

Monday, May 6, 2013
Members of the state championship Greencastle High School English team with 22 of 25 questions answered correctly Saturday are (from left) Zack Wilkerson, Lily Spencer and team captain Hannah Gellman.

The Greencastle High School academic teams did something Saturday no athletic team in Putnam County or Greencastle has ever done, capturing two state championships on the same day.

GHS won Indiana Academic Super Bowl titles in both English and Interdisciplinary competition Saturday afternoon at the 26th annual competition staged at Purdue University in West Lafayette.

And the third team representing Greencastle in the state academic finals -- the GHS science squad -- took second place in the Class 3 competition.

"The science team's score would have won in all the other classes," GHS Latin teacher and academic coach Nicole Kempf noted of what was oh-so-close to a three-for-three Greencastle sweep.

"Both seniors on the science team were on the winning Interdisciplinary team," she pointed out, "so all our seniors who headed to Purdue had a chance to bring home a first-place medal."

The GHS English team had the highest Class 3 area score (22 out of 25) in the state going into Saturday's championship round and didn't let any title pressure get to them, producing an identical 22-of-25 score on Saturday.

Composed of Captain Hannah Gellman, Lily Spencer and Zach Wilkerson and coached by Kempf, the English team defeated Garrett, Eastern, Winamac, Bishop Luers and North Posey high schools to earn the title in Class 3.

"It's the first win for the English team," Kemp said. "We have gone several times and placed second or third, sometimes falling from first on the last question."

And don't look now, but it may be the beginning of a GHS English team dynasty.

"The entire English team will return next year," Kemp advised. "Hannah (Gellman) is a junior and both Zach (Wilkerson) and Lily (Spencer) are freshmen."

Meanwhile, the championship GHS Interdisciplinary squad correctly answered 19 of 25 questions (which can come from any of the five disciplines, Science, Fine Arts, Social Studies, Math or English) in taking the 2013 title.

Members of the state championship Greencastle High School Interdisciplinary team with 19 of 25 questions answered correctly Saturday are (from left) Hannah Gellman, Erin McConkey, Erik Norlin and team captain Avery Robinson.

"Interdisciplinary hasn't won for several years," Kemp noted. "None of us can remember what year that was."

Avery Robinson captains the Interdisciplinary team with Erik Norlin, Erin McConkey and Hannah Gellman as members.

The GHS Interdisciplinary squad had secured the sixth and final spot in the state finals by virtue of a tiebreaker, but made that pay off Saturday by outpointing Indian Creek, Cardinal Ritter, Park Tudor, South Spencer and Wapahani high schools.

The GHS Science team of Captain Avery Robinson, Beth Ann Hansen and Erik Norlin and coached by teacher Brad Kingma, got 22 of the 25 questions right to finish second in the state in Class 3.

Overall, coach Kempf was impressed by how the Greencastle team members absorbed the knowledge necessary to shine on Saturday.

"Even though the theme was Greece ('The Glory That Was Greece') not Rome, the students' classical background from Latin class paid off -- especially for the Interdisciplinary team," Kempf noted.

"I had a great time discussing 'The Odyssey' and 'Antigone' with my English team," she added. "I was thrilled that this year's topic allowed me to cover classical literature."

Greencastle has had a long history of sending teams to the state finals dating back to the competition's first year in 1987.

GHS has now won at least 14 state titles overall, including five times in which the Tiger Cubs have now captured two state championships the same year (1991, 1993, 1994, 1998 and now 2013).

Comments
View 1 comment
Note: The nature of the Internet makes it impractical for our staff to review every comment. Please note that those who post comments on this website may do so using a screen name, which may or may not reflect a website user's actual name. Readers should be careful not to assign comments to real people who may have names similar to screen names. Refrain from obscenity in your comments, and to keep discussions civil, don't say anything in a way your grandmother would be ashamed to read.
  • Excellent job!! Very impressive! I hope the sign listing the other championships is soon updated to include your wins!

    -- Posted by r-s-white on Mon, May 6, 2013, at 9:02 AM
Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: