America Bowl, the history trivia game for middle and elementary schoolers, is widely known throughout Baldwin because the high school hosts this event, but this year things were a little different: The competition was held online because of the pandemic. 

This event has been running for nine years and was created for gifted students to test their knowledge about U.S. history. 

This year the academic competition was run by high school students and hosted by the gifted teachers, Samantha Parks and Jared Hoffman. The students came up with 60 history-based questions for sixth through eighth grade and another 60 questions for the third through fifth grade. 

Twelve area school districts participated in this event, totaling around 260 students altogether in the competition. 

To make the online program more entertaining, high school students “put together skits and made it like Family Feud,” Hoffman said. 

Seniors Griffin Graham and Joey Kosslow said this year was still fun even though it was online. They recreated the Netflix show “Billy on the Street,” and changed it to “History on the Street” as their skit to introduce this competition.

There were five individual winners in the third- through fifth-grade division and five winners in the sixth- through eighth-grade division. Rylee Ruffling, a Baldwin sixth grader, was one of the 10 winners.