The defending state Hi-Q champion Monroe Bearcats hosted the Meadowdale Mavericks and Mountlake Terrace Hawks at Monroe High School Tuesday morning for the 2022-23 state Hi-Q championship.

After the current events and American history categories, the score was tight: Monroe-6, Meadowdale and Mountlake Terrace each with 4. Then came biology and sports, at which point the Mavericks led with 13 to Monroe's 10 and Terrace's 8. The Bearcats, however, correctly answered two of the three literature questions and solved two of the three math problems to take the lead for good.  Halftime saw the Bearcats with 20 points, Mavericks with 14, and Hawks with 9.

The second half categories brought difficulty for all three teams. The Bearcats' managed bonus answers in art history, geography and government. The Mavericks claimed a bonus in chemistry.  The Hawks staged a comeback with 4-point answers in chemistry and world history. But in the end, the Bearcats held onto the state championship with a final score: Monroe Bearcats - 24, Mountlake Terrace Hawks - 18, Meadowdale Mavericks - 15.  

Monroe will advance to the national contest with teams from Delaware County, Pennsylvania; Mobile, Alabama; and Marinette, Wisconsin/Menominee, Michigan, which will be held via Zoom Webinar on Friday, March 24th at 9:00 a.m. at the District Administration Office. 

Coached by Melissa Reed, team members include: Daniel Axelson, Luna Ayala, Amor Ayala, Griselda Carillo, Aubrey Gardiner, Emmaleigh Hahn, Sophie Huang, Natalie Kuntz, Jayden Sibley, and Edwin Tasto.  

About Hi-Q

Hi-Q is the oldest academic quiz competition for high school students in the nation and is the ONLY interscholastic academic competition in Washington that showcases students' high academic achievement in front of a general student audience. Competition questions are drawn from 14 subjects and based primarily on the content of standard high school courses and general scholastic knowledge that students can be expected to have acquired at school or elsewhere.

Hi-Q originally came to Western Washington in 1975 and was run by the Scott Paper Company. Everett Community College took over and ran the program from 1997 through 2012. When EvCC abandoned the program, students on the Monroe Hi-Q team mounted a campaign to save it, garnering a few front-page stories in the Everett Herald. EvCC's leaders weren't interested in continuing the program, but Monroe School District's then-superintendent, Dr. Ken Hoover, negotiated the transfer of Hi-Q's stage equipment to MSD and various Monroe High School staff worked out, with district involvement, a system for running Hi-Q through the MHS ASB.

And they're still going strong! More than five hundred students in surrounding school districts have shared the Hi-Q team experience and thousands of their classmates have cheered them on during Hi-Q assemblies. And it's only possible because some educators in Monroe believed in 2012 it was important and still support it by maintaining the bookkeeping/business side and other logistics.

Other competing schools in the 2022-23 season were Archbishop Murphy, Lynnwood, and Stanwood.  Edmonds-Woodway, Jackson, Lake Stevens, Marysville-Getchell and Marysville-Pilchuck.