There were nine groups of students, consisting of juniors and seniors, competing for the right to have their names engraved on the district’s eagle trophy, which will remain on display at the school for years to come.

The winning team, a group of male juniors known as “Team Clarence Brandenburg,” will also receive a free lunch from any local establishment of their choice, high school social studies and AP government and politics teacher Seth O’Brien said.

O’Brien, alongside middle school Principal Joe Strittmatter, was responsible for taking the lead on the civics bowl and most of the district’s activities this week related to America250PA’s torch visit, high school Principal Lisa Asashon said.

On Wednesday, O’Brien organized the civics bowl competition with help from teacher Shane McGregor. All but one of the students who competed were either current or former AP government students, which is a civics class O’Brien teaches every year to junior students.

Brandon Kochinsky, Central Cambria High School’s assistant principal, lights the Cambria County Liberty Torch, which has been on tour at participating school districts throughout the county since February. Mirror photo by Matt Churella

“We’re big trivia junkies,” O’Brien said of himself and McGregor. “We go to trivia weekly it seems, so we thought the kids would get a kick out of it as another way to show how hard they’ve worked and how much they’ve studied.”

Since his students took their AP exam Tuesday, O’Brien said the competition gave them a nice way to decompress and have fun after cramming for the test.

Studying for the test may have helped the winning team, who jokingly claimed in class that they were going to win, O’Brien said.

“They were a little bit nervous from calling their shot. But they told me to get their Chipotle orders ready, so I expect that’s where we’ll be getting food from,” O’Brien said.

Junior Cruz Kutney, who was part of the winning team, commended his teacher, “OB,” for making school a fun and engaging place to be.

Central Cambria junior Max Cafazza of the winning civics bowl team, “Clarence Brandenburg,” holds the eagle trophy, which will be engraved with the winning students’ names and placed on display at the school. Mirror photo by Matt Churella

“He makes learning AP gov(ernment) pretty interesting,” Kutney said.

The competition began with a round of 10 light questions about American history, such as who the United States’ main adversary was during the Cold War and who served as president during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

In the second round, the students listened to five recordings of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and were responsible for naming the artist who sang the rendition.

The third round featured 10 intermediate questions, such as naming the largest tributary to the Mississippi River by volume and the fourth president immortalized at Mount Rushmore alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.

In the fourth round, the students were asked five “closest to the whole” questions in which they guessed answers to questions like the county’s population based on the 2020 census and had to be the team closest to the actual answer to get the point.

One team was successful in correctly guessing the total number of people who died in the 1889 Johnstown Flood, which claimed 2,209 lives.

In the final round, students wagered their points in a series of “Jeopardy!” questions related to American books, such as naming the United States president who authored a book and won a Pulitzer Prize.

Junior Max Cafazza was also part of the winning team.

He said the fourth-round questions “definitely threw us off.”

“We didn’t know where to aim, but we got close enough to two of them, so that was big for us,” Cafazza said.

Cafazza said winning the eagle trophy was a huge accomplishment for his team.

“Our teacher, Mr. O’Brien, really motivated us to compete and try to win the trophy,” he said. “We all studied up beforehand to make sure we knew everything and it definitely worked. We followed through.”

O’Brien said the district plans to host the civics bowl competition as an annual event moving forward, which both Kutney and Cafazza spoke in favor of, noting they had fun.

Mirror Staff Writer Matt Churella is at 814-946-7520.