Senior projects can range from learning to play an instrument to beekeeping. There is a wide variety of options, and students can do almost anything, as long as the school approves. One student has decided to use his senior project opportunity and love for the academic competition, Quiz bowl, to create a league of local schools to participate in the trivia based game.

“I really enjoy being on our schools Quiz bowl team so I thought I might offer it to other schools and students as well,” junior Matthew Norwood said. “My plan is to start a league with the help of Mr. Taylor for schools in north east Texas to participate in. I hope we can get a lot of schools interested in this league so we can have more teams in the area and maybe even have weekly competitions.”

Although it’s rare for a student to start so early on their senior project, Norwood knows it is necessary.

“Right now the project is in the process of being evaluated for approval, but I don’t see how it wouldn’t meet the requirements,” Norwood said. “I know that if I want to league to start next year I’m going to have to begin working on it. I have to talk to a lot of people at a lot of different schools and if I don’t start contacting people now, it won’t be ready at the beginning of the next school year.”

However, Quiz bowl sponsor Jason Taylor knows the project won’t be easy to complete.

“I was the one that implanted the idea in Norwood’s head,” Taylor said. “The project will take some coordination. He’s going to have to go and talk to all the schools, develop a plan and figure out how to format the tournaments, when and where to execute said tournaments, and where to get approved questions.”

Still, they believe that their efforts will pay off.

“The benefits of having a local league would include more consistent tournaments, more involvement, more of a sense of belonging, and closer and more frequent travel,” Taylor said.

Current members of the team are also looking forward to the benefits the league could offer.

“This Quiz bowl season we’ve only had about three tournaments,” sophomore John Reaves said. “We spend a lot of time practicing and meeting but then we don’t really have the opportunities to show it paid off. I think that if we did have a local league we’d get to participate in the program a lot more. If we actually spent more time competing against other teams I believe it would be a lot more interesting and fun.”