The Richmond County School System held a district wide reading competition on Jan. 31 at Spirit Creek Middle, where students from 42 area schools competed to test their literary knowledge.
The Helen Ruffin reading bowl is a reading competition created by Georgia educators to encourage students to read.
Schools and public libraries throughout the state of Georgia compete annually in local, regional and state finals competitions to answer questions about award nominated books. The regional competitions are upcoming in February.
Students from participating schools spent the morning into the afternoon going head to head with four rounds featuring 15 questions each.
Students had a set selection of books to read in preparation for the event, elementary and middle schoolers having a list of ten books and high schoolers having a list of 20.
Winners were chosen for elementary, middle and high school levels, and the first place champion teams, respectively, are C.T. Walker Magnet School, W.S. Hornsby Middle School and A.R. Johnson Health Science and Engineering Magnet School.
Winners share their thoughts
Several sixth grade winners from W.S. Hornsby took a moment to share their thoughts on their win after the competition ended. Many of these students agreed that although they loved reading before, the bowl made their passion for it grow stronger.
“I like fiction because like, when you read it, you can feel like you’re in the book, and it’s so magical,” said Hornsby team captain Jabri’la Dunlap.
Kacy Mitchell marveled that a book “can be anything in the world.”
She added that during this competition, she learned a lot about the famous painting The Mona Lisa by reading “The Mona Lisa Vanishes” by Nicholas Day.
Genesis Plummer said that practicing answering questions about the books helped his team prepare for their win. He also said that they couldn’t have done it without their coach, school librarian Romona Nora.
“Ms. Nora is a great teacher, and she’s one of the best fit to do this competition,” he said.
Dunlap seconded Plummer, saying that Nora’s involvement helped push them to greatness.
“She even takes her time and writes notes about all the books so we can have our notes and we can go over everything,” said Dunlap.
Other recognized schools
First through fourth place winners were recognized in the elementary, middle and high school categories.
Also recognized in the elementary category besides C.T. Walker was Lake Forest Hills Elementary in second place, Warren Road Elementary in third place and McBean Elementary in fourth place.
In the middle school category, Pine Hill Middle walked away with second place recognition, and A.R. Johnson Health Science and Engineering Magnet and Belair Middle took third and fourth places respectively.
Additional High School winners include Richmond County Technical Career Magnet in second place, T.W. Josey High in third place and Academy of Richmond County and George P. Butler High tied for fourth place.
