Eight students faced off in the second annual Rockbridge History Bee on Feb. 10th, hosted by the Rockbridge Historical Society.

Students were asked multiple choice questions concerning local history from the book, “Remarkable Rockbridge,” by Charles Bodie. Questions began moderately easy and progressed into medium and hard difficulties.

Last year’s History Bee lasted only five rounds of questions, however this year students lasted almost 15 rounds. Reigning Champion and senior, Jacob Trout, won again as he was the only contestant to not receive a third strike. After a round of questions to determine the remaining places, senior Quinn Hoover took second place, and senior Kaizad Irani took third.

Trout felt that competing in the History Bee last year helped set him up for success in this year’s competition.

“I read the book last year, and this year I only had time to read about half of it again. I didn’t study as much as I could have this year, but it worked out,” said Trout. “It was a huge advantage having done [the bee] last year.”

As a prize for winning, Trout took home $1,500. Second and third place received prizes of $750 and $500, respectively.

“It’s going to pay for college,” said Trout. “To pay for books and things.”

Eric Wilson, the Executive Director of the Rockbridge Historical Society, helped organize and moderate the event.

“This is the second year we’ve done this. We started planning at the end of 2015,” said Wilson. “So it’s three years in, trying to set up a vision, think about our target audience, not just with students but how can we make this a community event.”

The Rockbridge Historical Society made a few small adjustments from last year’s competition after receiving feedback from competitors.

“We tried a few adjustments this year and I feel it worked well. We are eager to hear back from the contestants this year. We are eager to get the numbers up. I’d love to see 15 people on the stage,” said Wilson.

The organizers have worked closely with RCHS staff to recruit students and increase interest in the event.

“We continue to work with teachers; Ms. Williamson, Mr. Gallagher, Ms. Hayslette, Amanda Merrill in the library, have been really supportive. I think we need to start building an awareness at the 10th grade level.” said Wilson.

A majority of the competitors were seniors and will not be returning to the competition next year. Wilson advised that competitors for next year’s competition not try to memorize the whole book.

“Don’t focus too heavily on the granular data, the tiny statistics, the names, the dates,” said Wilson. “They will be in there, but we design questions and structure answers so that a lot of your way of eliminating things comes from a general knowledge of history. Critical reasoning is very big here not just rote memorization.”