Students at Greene County High School brought home lots of hardware from the Spanish Quiz Bowl at Central College in Pella recently.

Spanish teacher Beth VanderWilt says the Spanish II and IV students tied for first place, while the Spanish III students won first place outright at Tuesday’s competition.

Students competed in a variety of areas, testing their abilities with the Spanish language and culture. VanderWilt says the students that earned first place in Spanish III were Emily Heupel, Chase Juergensen, Michael Kennedy, Logan Lansman, Kenna Marquardt and Hannah Promes. They competed in a head-to-head contest, music and writing contests and a skit competition.

The Spanish II team that tied with Pella Christian High School for the top spot included Kyle Peters, Jordan Patterson, Garrett Swain, Samantha Hardaway and Victoria Johnson. They competed in similar contests like in Spanish III, but their music category was a sing-along. Students had to choose a Spanish language song, memorize it and create dance moves with it. VanderWilt points out that the Spanish II team scored the highest amount of points in the head-to-head competition.

There were so many students in Spanish II, that there was a second team which consisted of Hunter Beyerink, Gweneth Black, Britton Gallagher, Nick Hoffman, Zoe Joy, and Ben Wilkins. They ended up tying for ninth place with a team from Pella High School.

VanderWilt says it was tough finding time for the students to practice before the competition, but their dedication paid off. “This group of students is a such a well-rounded group in general. They are athletes and musicians in addition to being great students. It was difficult to find free time to practice together for that reason. For us to bring home three first place trophies was an incredible experience! Personally, the best part of the day for me was seeing the shear happiness of the students when they won the trophies!”

Spanish teacher Amy Van der Meer says her Spanish IV students tied for first place with Pella High School and they won the skit competition outright and performed their skit in front of all of the nine high schools at the awards ceremony. She is proud of the work her students did. “We are fortunate to have such great students to work with. The best part of the day was watching the students interact with each other and observe all the new information they were practicing together on the bus.”

A full list of results can be found below.

FINAL RESULTS:

Spanish 2

1- Greene Co. 2/PCHS (tie)

2- C-M

3- Knoxville/Carlisle (tie)

4- Pella 1

5- Ogden

6- WCV

7- DCG

8- N. Tama

9- Pella 2/Greene Co. 1 (tie)

Spanish 3

1- Greene Co.

2- PCHS

3- Pella

4- DCG

5- Carlisle

6- Knoxville

7- WCV

8- Ogden

9- N. Tama

Spanish 4

1- Pella/Greene Co. (tie)

2- PCHS

3- DCG

4- WCV/Carlisle (tie)

5- N. Tama