New Mexico Discussion 2011-2012

[Great Bustard]

New Mexico Academic Competition Calendar: 2011-2012 (since there's otherwise so little in the way of qb in NM, this includes all academic competitions)

November

December

January
21: Academic Decathlon Regional Competition, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

February
18: Academic Decathlon State Finals, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
25: New Mexico Science Olympiad State Finals, New Mexico Tech, Socorro, NM

March
3: New Mexico Science Bowl, Albuquerque Academy, Albuquerque, NM
31: Tentative Date for New Mexico Senators' Quiz Bowl Tournament, location TBA

April
25-28: Academic Decathlon National Championships, Albuquerque, NM
26-30: National Science Bowl National Championships, Washington, DC
28-29: National History Bee and Bowl National Championships, Washington, DC

May
18-19: National Science Olympiad National Championships, Orlando, Florida

June
9-10: PACE National Scholastics Championship, Washington University, St. Louis, MO

[Great Bustard]

Well, that resulted in a deafening silence. Never mind, though. I'm taking New Mexico on as a personal project. Basically, I'm working with Senator Bingaman's office to start a statewide competition. I have spoken with Senator Bingaman, whom I know personally, and he is supportive of a New Mexico Senator's Quiz Bowl or something like that. For this coming year, I envision 4 regional tournaments around New Mexico, followed by a state final. There will also certainly be a New Mexico History Bee and Bowl, probably at Rio Rancho, near Albuquerque, and southern NM schools can play in El Paso at our tournament in Ysleta. For 2012-2013 and beyond, I am interested in turning the NMSQB into a league, even though Sen. Bingaman will be retiring in a year and a half. But one step at a time. More details on all this forthcoming. I also have at least one contact at UNM who will be helping me with all this, though again, if you have an interest in NM quiz bowl, let me know.

[Sun Devil Student]

Breaking the silence as quietly as I can, I do know of one person in New Mexico, whom I haven't seen for years but can try to track down on Facebook if you wish. He captained UNM-Albuquerque at the very last College Bowl in 2008.

I can't really give much other help from Arizona (so far away, despite sharing a state border) but good luck in New Mexico, and if you manage to pull any college teams out of the ground, please send them westward. :)

[Cassian]

I talked to Julie Gittings from State College at Sci Bowl Nationals in DC for awhile. She told me that among her retirement plans was moving to NM at least part time. I thought she mentioned some intent of being involved in QB while she was there. If so, I assume she'd be a good person to have around...

If there were legit tournaments or some sort of circuit in New Mexico, I'd imagine some Texas teams (including possibly LASA) would make the trip west from time to time.

[Great Bustard]

How's this for sheer bizarreness:
So Raynell Cooper and I are watching Jeopardy at the Marriott Crystal Gateway in Arlington, VA tonight, and as soon as they show the contestants I blurt out, hey that's Samer Ismail - he directed a tournament I played in at Yale in 1998. Towards the end of the game, I notice someone who kinds of looks like Samer hanging around the bar as well who is taking an unusual interest in the game (which I had to argue with the bar staff to even show). Turns out, the guy who looks like Samer is actually Samer's brother Ahmed, whom I happen to remember was also at the Yale tournament in 1998. So we get to talking - part of the conversation mind you is in German, a language that Ahmed and I realize we both speak because I lived in Germany for four years, and Ahmed is a professor there now. While talking, I mention that I had a meeting on Capitol Hill today with Senator Bingaman's staff to discuss plans for the proposed New Mexico Senators' Quiz Bowl, and Ahmed then mentions that despite New Mexico being a veritable quiz bowl desert, he actually ran a tournament there back when he used to work in New Mexico. Meanwhile, I had literally two hours earlier been talking to Senator Bingaman's staff about the need to find people with an interest in building up quiz bowl in New Mexico. Anyway, so transpired basically the most surreal 30 minutes of my life. All that was missing was Alex Trebek sitting next to Sean Connery at the bar. Maybe I didn't look hard enough.

[Angry Babies in Love]

I can attest to this crazy coincidence happening.

EDIT: Coincidentally, the person who won that episode was from Arlington, VA.

[Great Bustard]

Okay, I'm flying out to spend three days in New Mexico from Nov 6-9 with no purpose other than to organize, organize, organize for quizbowl. If you want to help me out, come have dinner with me in Albuquerque on the evening of Sunday, Nov. 6 and we'll talk about setting up tournaments and laying some structure for a future state organization founded on good quizbowl practices. Or if you're not in Albuquerque, let me know and I'll come visit schools throughout the state. I'll have a rental car and 72 hours. Watch me put over 1000 miles on it during that time frame. Driving across the New Mexico desert at 3am to set up quiz bowl tournaments... God, I love what I do.

[mbnm]

So I'm a high school student in Los Alamos, and I think that starting up quiz bowl in NM is a great idea. We mostly do science bowl, but in 2009 we went to a quiz bowl tournament in Albuquerque, which was the last tournament that I was aware of. This year, we definitely have some people who are interested in quiz bowl. If you need any help organizing stuff, I'll try to help.

[Great Bustard]

Hi Micha,
That's great to hear! I'm sorry I wasn't able to come to your school and meet with your team. In any case, though, I've had a productive trip out to New Mexico. Let me recap where we're likely to go this year with everything:

1. Senators' Quiz Bowl
So, the nub here is that to call anything "Senators'" whatever, it needs to be already incorporated as a 501c3. This is a route we should go down anyway, but it will likely take a year or so. Good news is that Sen. Bingaman's staff has offered to put me in touch with a law firm that can likely set us up on a pro bono (i.e. free legal fees) basis.

2. Northern New Mexico
In and around the small town of Las Vegas, NM, there are basically two separate groups (one consisting of superintendents, the other of retired teachers) who are interested in setting up a quiz bowl tournament. I've volunteered to come out and run it, and kick in $1000 for expenses to get them started. I met with the two groups separately; they now need to come together and work this out. Everyone's heart seems to be in the right place though, and I will help them with logistical and directing matters, as long as the superintendents can recruit their high schools. Either April 14 or May 5 (likely the latter) seems like the most likely date for this tournament.
However, they're very concerned (and to me, this is a very legitimate concern) about not being overwhelmed either by questions that are too hard or teams from outside the area from larger and wealthier school districts. So this tournament is likely to only be open to public schools in small districts in Northern New Mexico, perhaps within an hour or so of Las Vegas, NM. As far as questions go, they've ordered practice questions from NAQT, and liked the notion of pyramidality. So that's good news. However, even the A set questions they had ordered might be too hard. Hopefully, the students can ease into A set questions by the spring - the superintendents and retired teachers both expressed an interest in finding teachers to help coach kids in different subjects. If it seems like A set questions would be too hard, I strongly urge NAQT to be flexible, and cobble together a set with some easier questions somehow. It's very important the kids are challenged, but not frustrated by the questions. I have volunteered to write a few NM centric questions if NAQT wouldn't be able to find enough on their own to also include in the set.

3. Tournaments in and around Albuquerque
Last night I met with Jay Brotz (a scientist at Sandia Natl. Lab, and a former NM QB tournament organizer, along with Ahmed Ismail, who's now in Germany) and Kiran Manne the coach at Albuquerque Academy. They expressed support for the idea of doing a couple of small tournaments during afternoons in the week. For example, Los Alamos, La Cueva, and Al. Acad. could each bring two teams, and your three schools could do a round robin over five rounds from 4pm-8:30pm with a dinner break. This could also be a way to do a small History Bowl this year - with perhaps the Bee done separately so it doesn't go too late. Perhaps AA, LC, and LA could all host one of these mini tournaments, once a month in late January, late February, and late March? Other schools would be welcome too, as long as rooms are available.
As far as a Sat. tournament goes (which might be more viable for Las Cruces and El Paso area schools), it didn't sound like AA could likely host, but perhaps another school could then host a tournament in April or May? If we get once a month tournaments going after school, hopefully this could generate momentum for a tournament on April 21 or May 19, for example.

4. Middle School
We are basically committed to holding our National History Bee regional for middle schools for NM and West Texas and the TX Panhandle in or near Albuquerque on Feb. 24. If we get a critical mass of students, I'd look into seeing if we could run a middle school tournament then on first Sunday in May, after the Las Vegas tournament (if indeed it is in May). April 15 could also work, but I would feel more comfortable doing this in May, given the need to prep for NHBB Nationals.

5. Further Organizing
Sen. Bingaman's office is helping me with contacts, and I will soon create a rudimentary webpage. Given the dearth of academic competitions in the state, period, I am going to call the organization the New Mexico Alliance for Academic Competition and appoint myself as interim chair, to be replaced whenever there's someone on the ground who can take over. It will have information on all academic competitions I can find in the state, and serve as an informal organizing clearinghouse. Julie Gittings, btw, will be out in NM for two months, and has expressed interest in helping organize too.
Okay, glad I came out here - I will keep doing what I can from New Jersey and elsewhere to be supportive, and I'll follow up with schools who have expressed interest. Hopefully we can get some dates worked out for the first afterschool meets soon.

Cheers,
David

[mbnm]

David,

I think having a few tournaments in ABQ sounds like a good way to get started. We'll definitely try to go to all of them that we can. Also, if there is a History Bowl, I think we'd go.
I'm pretty sure we can host one of these smaller tournaments after winter break when our new building opens up. Although it's a somewhat inconvenient location, we may be able to host a larger weekend one (although I would have to check with the school administration). The dates you suggested seem fine, and they don't interfere with Science Bowl.

Thanks for all your work!

[plokqaws]

We (Albuquerque Academy) are hoping to host scrimages soon, with any teams that want to come. And maybe host a NAQT tournament the day after Science Bowl so that people from across the state do not have to make several trips.

User was reminded to be one person.

[Important Bird Area]

And maybe host a NAQT tournament the day after Science Bowl so that people from across the state do not have to make several trips.

This is a great idea! Please contact us (hosting (at) naqt.com) to reserve a set.

[plokqaws]

Hello all, The Albuquerque Academy would like to welcome any high school team in the state of New Mexico to the school on March 4th for a scrimmage tournament (one that doesn't count for any National tournaments). We have 10 spots, so please email me at [email protected] to reserve a spot and get more info. By the way the date is the day after the High School Sci Bowl tournament, so schools don't have to make multiple trips. Thank you

User was, once again, reminded to be a single, named person.