Structural Change of the National History Bee and Bowl

[Great Bustard]

Effective immediately, The National History Bee and Bowl LLC and Academic Competition Enterprises have jointly concluded a new arrangement for the management and oversight of the Elementary and Middle School divisions of National History Bee, National History Bowl, Pop Culture Challenge, and National Citizenship Bee. It is anticipated that in short order, the same will follow for the US Geography Olympiad. These competitions will be directly overseen through the end of the 2018-2019 academic year by Academic Competition Enterprises (ACE) of Spartanburg, SC. As the leaders of ACE, Eric Huff and Nick Clusserath, have been employees of NHBB in the past, and have years of experience overseeing these competitions already, these competitions will remain in good hands for the next four years. On a practical basis, this will have no bearing on the way that these competitions are being administered for this school year - students, schools, and families do not need to adjust any element of their participation. From a personal point of view, this will allow both NHBB and ACE to more effectively serve the community with expanded capacity, increased competition offerings, and better service. I am grateful for Eric and Nick's efforts on behalf of NHBB and wish them well in their direct oversight through ACE of the Elementary and Middle School Divisions of the National History Bee and Bowl and the various related competitions.

[the return of AHAN]

Question: How does a team qualify for the middle school History Bowl? If I understand correctly, the Bee & Bowl nationals will be in June, but I've seen no opportunities to qualify for it, other than by showing up at a high school bowl and playing high schoolers, which may or may not be prohibited by our state organization.

[Great Bustard]

Question: How does a team qualify for the middle school History Bowl? If I understand correctly, the Bee & Bowl nationals will be in June, but I've seen no opportunities to qualify for it, other than by showing up at a high school bowl and playing high schoolers, which may or may not be prohibited by our state organization.

There will be at least 15 History Bowl tournaments with a middle school division around the country this year. These include:
1. Lower Hudson (White Plains, NY on Dec. 19)
2. Northern California Fall (Saratoga, CA on Dec. 6)
3. Hudson Valley Championships (Tuxedo Park, NY on Feb. 20)
4. Capitol Region Championships (Ellicott City, MD on Mar. 12)
5. Colorado (possibly) - (Ft. Collins, CO on Feb. 13)
These have all been held in conjunction with NHBB high school level events. For these events only, NHBB will still run things. The other 10 or more History Bowl events with dedicated middle school divisions will be administered by ACE, so I'll leave it to them to comment further. At the above events, teams qualified the same way they would in a standard high school level History Bowl (i.e. by going 2-2 or better if they have a bye, by going 3-2 or better if they don't, or by winning a playoff game).
ACE can also comment on how specifically teams can qualify if they compete against JV teams and in the instance where some of those games in a JV Division are also against middle school teams, but those policies are up to them.
On the matter of whether playing high schoolers in NHBB events is or is not allowed in Illinois, contact Brad Fischer at brad@historybowl.com as I know he was looking into this, and I think he did get a response of some sort, but given the confusing nature of the state organization, I don't want to mischaracterize what the response said.