Sophomore Douglas Simons, the 2016 National JV History Bee Champion, won a huge Championship Cup [below] and an all expense paid [7 days, hotel, air fare, meals, and registration fee] trip to Honolulu, Hawaii to compete in the International History Olympiad [July 17 to 24, 2016]. The JV Division was composed of 181 students in the tenth grade and below.

From Left to Right: Dr. Eng, Samuel Kao, Ray Zeng, Doug Simons, and Andrew Huang.

The JV Championship Bee match was quite exciting. The final match is composed of 35 questions, with 3 to 6 points awarded for the correct answer, more points for the quicker response, minus 2 points for interrupting with an incorrect answer and minus 1 point for an incorrect answer after the question is completely read.

In past competitions, Douglas usually starts 'slow.' But after the first 10 questions, we were a bit nervous, with Douglas having a score of -5 points, and the other two students tied with +10 points each. After 20 questions, Douglas finally moved into positive territory with a +10 score, Rohan had +15 and Muzaffer had +19. After 25 questions, Douglas took the lead, with 25 points, Rohan had 22 points and Muzaffer had 19 points. After 30 questions, Douglas had a commanding lead with 37 points, Rohan had 21 points and Muzaffer had 15 points. At the completion of the match, Douglas finished with 43 points, compared to 25 points for Rohan and 19 points for Muzaffer.

Also competing in the Varsity Bowl division was our B Team composed of: Gaurav Sharma [junior], Karl Roush [junior], Jarrett Liang [senior], and Sean Kearns [senior]. Competing in the JV Bee & Bowl divisions was our JV Team composed of 5 freshmen: Steven Liu, Nelson Lin, Darren Petrosino, Adrian Thamburaj, and Eric Zheng. Kathryn Jiang [senior] was an official tournament Reader.

And special thanks to the PFA Student Enrichment Committee for their financial support and the traveling parents for providing transportation and wonderful encouragement.