Andy Guest, Jacob Marx, Jesse Pence, Deanna Salcedo, and Terry Wedam all have one thing in common. They are all members of Henley’s Academic Challenge Team, which promotes intellectual competition from students in the southern Oregon area.

At the Academic Challenge meets, teams are matched up against an opposing school’s team and asked a series of questions, which span all categories of scholastic subjects, ranging from politics to chemistry.

For the Henley team the most difficult part of the competition is not answering the questions, but a lack of communication between the judge and the Henley team members. During their first match against Ashland, Henley suffered a 20 point deduction because Henley had calculators. The rules that were given to the Henley team did not specifically prohibit the use of a calculator, and the Henley team was penalized half-way through the match for their use. During the break, he producer of the show ruled that using the calculator did in fact violate the rules of the challenge, and gave the Henley team a minor deduction.

Team member Terry Wedam believes that they have the potential to become one of the top teams in the competition.

“We’ve had experience with this type of competition before. Ashland was a tough team, but we were close to beating them. That means a lot to us as far as our confidence.”

Some of Henley’s responses are not entirely serious. For example, when Henley was given a question that required them to identify an architect, and it was obvious that no one on the team could provide the correct answer, Guest buzzed in with, “Chuck Shannon”.

“It’s [the competition] is a lot of fun,” Guest said. “Tune in to support your fellow students!”

The competitions are held on Wednesday evenings and are recorded for the public to view on NBC channel 2 at 6:30 on Sunday nights. Students recently signed up and a rooter bus travelled to the last competition.

For students interested in experiencing the action first hand, there is a large sign up sheet for the rooter bus in front of Mr. Steinbock’s classroom, on the left side of the library.