The North Buncombe HS World Quest Team in front of the Capitol Building, where students took a tour that included visits to Sen. Burr’s office and the floor of the Senate (where team member Tyler Jacon worked as a page after his sophomore year). Left to right: Sophomore Travis Broadhurst, Junior Alex Lappie, and Seniors Nathaniel Broadhurst and Tyler Jacon.
From the press release from Buncombe County Schools:
A 4-person team from North Buncombe High School recently returned from the 10th Annual National WorldQuest competition in Washington DC, held on April 21, 2012. The North Buncombe team has represented Western North Carolina at the national competition for four straight years. This year, approximately a thousand schools participated in regional competitions across the country, with 44 schools, including North Buncombe, advancing to the top 1% in the country in the national finals.
The North Buncombe HS team members are: Travis Broadhurst, Nathaniel Broadhurst, Tyler Jacon and Akex Lappie. These students spent their own time to master about 1,500 pages of material about a variety of complex topics. This year’s categories focused on the Six Top National Security Issues facing the United States in the run-up to the 2012 presidential election, as voted on by leaders of World Affairs Councils across the country: US Education: Competing Globally; US Energy Policy; US Economic Competitiveness; the Middle East; Afghanistan/Pakistan; and China. The amount of knowledge these students had to know in order to compete nationally is truly astounding!
While in DC the students were able to visit the Congress, took a tour that allowed them to visit the floor of the Senate where NBHS Senior Tyler Jacon served as page during his sophomore year, visited the Embassies of China and Saudi Arabia, and visited the “Newseum,” an interesting museum devoted to journalism.
For eight years the World Affairs Council of Western North Carolina has sponsored competition in Western Carolina, with the winner moving on to the national competition in Washington DC. While North Buncombe was the only team to represent Western NC in the 2012 finals, AC Reynolds HS and Erwin HS also competed in the regional competition this year. Previous winners have included TC Roberson High School, AC Reynolds High School and Asheville High. North Buncombe High School has won the local competition for the last four years.
Winning teams receive airfare and hotel accomodations in Washington, DC, where they face top schools from all over the United States. North Buncombe High has finished in the top half of the competition in DC all four years, finishing as high as 3rd in 2010.
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