Madison County Olympians

Early in 2022, was still fresh, teams across the state began meeting to practice for Academic Olympics. The competition was held on the MSU-Bozeman campus in mid-March. Students take a written test to qualify for their team’s seeding the day of competition and to compete individually. The actual competition is a Jeopardy-like challenge where teams challenge one another’s intellectual prowess. After a break in in-person competition during the pandemic, students were happy to go head to head in-person again.

Madison County sported multiple teams from Harrison, Ennis, Sheridan and Twin Bridges in the junior high and high school competitions.

“On Junior High day, there were 41 teams and 19 schools from around our area. On High School day, there were 42 teams and 18 schools,” said Tami Jenkins, Ennis school teacher and one of the originators of the event.

“We love Academic Olympics at Harrison school.

This year we had one junior high team and one high school team. Our kids love this experience - aside from getting out of school they get to participate in a fun but educational game. They get to be on MSU campus. They get to see and hang out with kids from other schools,” said Ann Hokanson. She went on to say, “Ennis, especially Tami, does an amazing job with it. It is a huge undertaking and we are lucky to have her.”

“Twin Bridges had three teams this year. The students really enjoyed competing in person again. They got to meet a lot of new people as well as learn a lot of trivia! Each team won at least one competition and they all had a lot of fun,” said coach Paige Paffhausen.