Quiz Bowlers Win Gold!
May 6, 2016
During the week of Spring Break, the seven competent Quiz Bowlers of Downey High School drove down to San Diego to compete in the state finals of SkillsUSA. With nothing but knowledge and perseverance permeating their minds, all seven members succeeded in the finals by beating all top competing schools–including Warren–and brought home gold.
The fellow team members of Quiz Bowl include senior team captains Robert Nevarez and Pablo Santos; teammates Carlos Agredano, Daniel Padilla, Andrew Bilodeau, Tristan Cortez, and Jonathan Yi. For Downey’s Quiz Bowl team, former senior, Aaron Ramirez inspires them and became an impetus to their achievements. Ramirez graduated from Downey High School in 2015 and was the former captain of Quiz Bowl who brought elation and high spirits to the team.
“I was in psych class and I just so happen to sit next to Aaron and he randomly asked me one day ‘Hey Pablo what’s the biggest prime factor of 51?’ and I tell him ‘17’ and he says ‘pretty good, why don’t you join Quiz Bowl?’” Santos said, “so then I joined Quiz Bowl.”
“Kinda the same thing for me, I had him for my bio class and he was just the loudest guy in there and he told me one day ‘Hey you’re cute, you should join Quiz Bowl,’” Agredano said.
There are facets of Quiz Bowl that the team members seem to love and appreciate: the adrenaline, intellectual compatibility, and feeling of accomplishment. A “brotherhood,” as they call it, blossomed between the seven members who share a passion for trivial questions. With the friendship and communal amicable dispositions they procure, they are able to enjoy Quiz Bowl in a family-like style.
“When you know the question and you buzz in right away, there’s a great feeling of satisfaction,” Padilla said.
“Yeah, it’s weird because it’s not a sport, obviously, but you still get that adrenaline when you’re sitting down and you’re trying to contain yourself,” Santos said.
“For me it’s the jokes we make and the ability to understand each other with intellectual jokes that you’re not usually able to tell regular people,” Agredano said.
“It’s the camaraderie that you feel and the sense of pride in your achievement that you have competing on the team and representing your school that I really enjoy about it,” Nevarez said.
Quiz Bowl administrator, Mr. Armendariz, likes the bonding time he gets to spend with the students and the trips they take that are outside of Downey.
“I think my favorite part about Quiz Bowl is just the new experiences that students and I go through together, so when we go to state we go and get to know San Diego. We’ve gone to a couple of universities and bowling too,” Mr. Armendariz said. “It’s just a fun experience to go out with the students and get to know a little more about life outside of Downey, and same thing for nationals. When we went to Kentucky we just experienced a whole new world that I didn’t even know that existed. We met some interesting people and ate some good food.”
Mr. Armendriz is grateful for all that Downey High School’s administration team has done to bolster not only the Quiz Bowl, but the SkillsUSA organization as a whole.
“I would just like to thank Ms. Vadgama for helping put this together, Maria Lopez, and Mr. Davis and just the whole district because without SkillsUSA many of these kids would not have the opportunity to get to know these places or get to bond with some of their friends so I really appreciate all of their support in this,” Mr. Armendariz said.
Six members of the gold-winning team are seniors, while only one is a junior. Bilodeau, 11, is a Quiz Bowl novice and an important element of the team. He bolstered Quiz Bowl to get to where they are now; his senior teammates truly appreciate all his hard work this year.
“I trust Andrew Bilodeau,” Agredano said. “If all six people in Quiz Bowl were to have a baby, it would be Andrew. I have faith in him, he inspires other kids just like Aaron does.”
“We’re proud of our junior,” Nevarez says. “We know that the future is in good hands next year.”
“The fact that we have him, adds another layer of depth to our team. He has AP US History and a lot of us forget, so he is really valuable in that area and he’s grown so much and going into next year; he’ll be a great captain,” Cortez said.
Similarly, Bilodeau feels as though his teammates have had a formative impact on him that has shaped his disposition positively.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better team. I’m just glad that I could be a part of the best Quiz Bowl team in the state and I’m going to miss these guys when they graduate,” Bilodeau says.“They’ve taught me so much, not just about Quiz Bowl, but about anything in life.”
For future potential candidates of Quiz Bowl, these Quiz Bowlers advise that students try out; if students have a propensity for random trivial facts, this is the perfect place for them!
“Do it. Just try out because if you think you have an interest in current events or if you feel like you’re one of those people who knows random things about random stuff then please try out and join,” Bilodeau said. “Do your best and we’ll find a place.”
“It’s pretty much open to anybody. Don’t feel intimidated to go, just because there’s a bunch of smart people, you can feed off of those people and learn a lot from them. Just be open to it,” Cortez said. “If there’s just one field you know a lot about, there will be a place for you, there’s a place for everybody, if you’re willing to make that effort.”
As the great indelible legacy that these seven Quiz Bowlers have left comes to an end, they assure Downey High School that at nationals in SkillsUSA they will end strong–Downey strong.
Quiz Bowl wishes to end their legacy like the famous NBA player that recently retired, Kobe Bryant.
“We’re just here to Quiz Ball up! We want to end like Kobe; we’re gonna go for 60 points at nationals,” Agredano said. “This is our last year and we want to make it memorable.”
This prodigious Quiz Bowl team has left a formative imprint in the history of Downey, and will continue to do so at nationals in Kentucky.
“I want to improve my writing,” Jimenez said, “not only for high school English, but for college as well.”
Jimenez chose to take AP Language and Composition because she wants to rectify any mistakes she has in her writing before she writes her prompt to apply to college.
“I chose to take AP Language and Composition because I felt with my experience in Honors 10 and the skills I developed that I would succeed in the class,” junior, Victoria Lopez said. “I like to challenge myself.”
Lopez and Jimenez feels comfortable in her AP class because she is surrounded by students who are passionate to learn and motivated to pursue the same goal.
“I like to write and I enjoyed Honors English 10 with Ms. Kasner,” junior, Andrew Bilodeau said, “so an opportunity to become a better writer in a subject I enjoy was to hard to pass up.”
Bilodeau has taken three years of AP/Honors English classes at Downey High School, similarly to Jimenez. AP Language and Composition includes more discussion of themes and broader concepts, making the class more interactive, rather than a traditional English class. In Bilodeau’s and Jimenez’s opinion it is a more productive learning environment.
Jimenez hopes to develop her writing skills on her writing because she believes writing is a central skill of everyday life and will be useful for her in the future.
“Nobody in this school really knows each other,” Fregoso said. “I mean there are so many students now, so I believe it is possible to have them get to know one another by getting to read each others’ stories on Downey Legend.”
If she is able to promote newspaper to the students, then those students can read stories about others’ lives and view them differently.
“Many people, many stories,” Fregoso said, “and when students pass each other without knowing who they're walking by, mainly because of how they dress or how they talk, it's kind of sad, because one can't simply judge a book by its cover.”
She knows how it feels to walk past students and not know who they are. During her freshman year, Fregoso moved to Downey High from St. Emydius, a private middle school, that only had about 250 students.
“That school was so little,” Fregoso said, “almost everyone knew each other.”
During the middle of her sophomore year, former newspaper writer, Akhila Nalamilli, mentioned the Downey Legend newspaper with Fregoso.
“Angelica is a very nice girl,” Nalamilli said. “Her writing is amazingly done and a great use for newspaper.”
Fregoso's love for writing came to her when she was in first grade; as she started taking tests on The Magic Treehouse: Age of Dinosaurs, she loved the idea of being able to write her own stories and include her own characters and make her own world.
It is not really a goal to write those kinds of stories to this day, Fregoso pointed out. Joining newspaper was to become open-minded and to write actual stories of actual people rather than typing fiction.
“Although it seemed interesting to write what I want my characters to say and how I want my world to work out,” Fregoso said, “I think it's better to write what real characters say and how their worlds work.”
Knowing how she had a flowing passion to accomplish this goal, Norma Fregoso, mother of Angelica, agrees that she can do it.
“My daughter has always been a creative writer,” Mrs. Fregoso said. “Ever since she was a young child, she has expressed interest for writing stories.”
Fregoso's writing also inspired her friends to improve on various things like essays and CQTs.
“Angelica's very passionate and puts all her emotions into her work,” Carolina Marin, Fregoso's best friend said. “Not everyone has the ability to express themselves correctly, and I feel that she is capable of conveying her point thoroughly and emotionally without confusing or misleading the reader.”
With much more to experience, Fregoso patiently waits for what stories she will be writing about in newspaper, and to obtain knowledge about the lives of students, teachers, and the citizens of Downey.
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