Marietta Takes Reading Bowl Honors for Second Year

’s Reading Bowl team returned home from Athens this weekend after successfully defending its state Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl championship by besting every team it faced this year.

So it’s hard to believe that there was a moment of major tension in the regional competition in early February… so much so that the team feared it might not even advance to the next level. And this was a team that had not given up a single round in any of its matches this year… not a one.

Because of the point system at regionals held at University of West Georgia, Sprayberry High School managed to eke by Marietta for first place even though Marietta had come out ahead in their head-to-head match.  Marietta had to face a tiebreaker round to claim the other spot for the division championship.

“It was a rude awakening for our kids to come in second,” said Rose Haisty, a parent volunteer and coach of the Marietta team. “They knew they had to come in first at division if they wanted to make it to state.”

That added incentive gave the team members that extra burst to review novels and questions and practice buzzing techniques. They won a spot for state after winning the division championship on Feb. 26 at Thurgood Marshall Elementary in Morrow. At state on March 5, they defeated Warner Robins High School by a score of 160-120. The match presented a rematch of last year’s state championship, which Marietta also won.

The Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl is a statewide reading competition, similar to both the game show Jeopardy and Academic Bowl competition in that competing teams of five students each attempt to buzz in with the quickest correct answer. Elementary and middle school teams read and compete using the Georgia Book Award title list, while high school students read and compete using the Georgia Peach Teen Reader's Choice nominee list.

The bowl is named after Helen Ruffin, a media specialist at Skyhaven Elementary School in DeKalb County until her retirement in 1992, who created a competitive game to encourage her students to read. The idea eventually grew into a statewide competition in 2003.

Marietta High’s team first competed in 2009, losing to a team with a similar MHS designation in regional that later bragged that they were the real “MHS” and not Marietta High. That sparked a desire, a need to beat the other MHS team.

“After that experience, they decided that was the one team to beat,” Haisty said of the students. “They came back with a vengeance and kept winning and winning and winning.”

And they kept reading and reading as well, although they preferred last years’ reading list over the 2010-2011 list, mainly because the previous one included more fantasy and general fiction. This year’s list, the students said, tried too hard—and failed—at compiling true-to-life teen novels.

Senior Kalifa Martin and sophomore Kimaria Stokes laughed as they related the plots of some of the stories, especially one in which a young girl spends much of a book not realizing that she was pregnant.

“You should just read the synopsis for some of the novels,” Kalifa said. “They are hysterical.”

Team coach:

Rose Haisty

Marietta High School media specialist:

Laura Gary-Michel

Team members:

Kimaria Stokes
Jessica Luegering
Bill Bruton
Samantha Haisty
Emily Franklin
Elizabeth Biron
Caleb Negash
Samantha Amos
Leigh Borkowski
Maggie Adams
Kalifa Martin
Katie Harper
Lillian Scott