For the fifth consecutive year, Buffalo’s Knowledge Bowl team is headed to State. Coming off a seventh place finish last year, the returning team of now seniors Cassidy Brown, Michael Hank, Mark Lee, and Levi Walls are ready to compete. With their unique talents, the four are prepared to receive a higher place at the state competition April 11-12 at Cragun’s Resort in Brainerd.
“I think our team is special in the fact that we have our own little niches, but we all contribute with each other,” Walls said. “It’s not one person does one thing and one person does another thing. We all kind of know a little bit of everything.”
Cassidy Brown
Nickname: Cassitron 3000
Specialties: Geography and Math
Description: “I’m the spokesperson, so I’m the one who actually has to give the answers to the reader and make sense out of everything that they’re all telling me.”
Fun Fact: Owns 41 chickens
Teammates’ Description: “She’s a ginger,” Hank said. “She’s also the unofficial leader and makes all the decisions because she has to. If she really doesn’t like the reader in the room then she gets snarky.”
“Unofficial? It’s pretty official,” Walls said of Brown being the leader.
“Cassidy is incredibly patient to deal with us all the time,” said Lee. “She has to do a lot of discernment to know which answer to choose because there can be times when we have four answers written down and she’d have to pick which one—and she often chooses the right answer. She’s not afraid when she knows she’s right. There can be three of us against her, she’ll say her answer and we’ll just say ‘ok Cassidy, you were right.’ I couldn’t ask for a better spokeswoman.”
Michael Hank
Nickname: Courtaud P. Tinkledeath
Specialties: Math and Science
Description: “I am the runner. Once the scores are posted or a little before if we get information from the other schools’ coaches, I basically run to whatever room we’re in and reserve table A. Normally I don’t have to run too fast unless Buffalo 2 is there and then I have to beat Robbie [DuBois] because he’ll do the same thing. I can sprint pretty fast, but I just can’t run really long because I get really, really tired. If people are closer, I run faster. Sometimes if we’re pretty sure that we’ll stay in the same room, I’ll leave my stuff there, but sometimes other teams move it. Then we get vengeful, and when we get vengeful, we fight.”
Fun Fact: Uses a GPS to drive to school.
Teammates’ Description: “How do you describe Michael? He’s eccentric,” Brown said. “He’s very in to knowledge bowl; he takes it very seriously. If the competition is really close he can get really stressed out and then he starts yelling at me. Then I get mad at him.”
“Where to start? He can be spastic, obnoxious, OCD. He runs to the rooms,” Walls said.
“He’s a sweetheart. A little odd, but he’s a sweetheart,” said Lee. “He’s incredibly smart. Sometimes he’ll lack a little bit in the common sense area of life, but he’s going to go far, I’m sure.”
Levi Walls
Nickname: Gimli Snorlax
Specialties: Science Fiction literature, and “Science stuff”
Description: “I would consider myself to be the buzzer. I have to anticipate what the question is going be and make sure that everybody keeps thinking about the question [and that] they don’t tangent.”
Fun Fact: He can recite verbatim the dialogue from all the Star Wars movies.
Teammates’ Description: “He’s very slow to respond. Dude, we have 15 seconds,” Brown said.
“He knows wars and biology,” Hank said.
“Levi, like Michael, is incredibly smart,” said Lee. “He’ll pull out answers that I’ll have no idea where he got them from in terms of history, or science. He knows all the terms and dates. He can be a little impatient with Michael, understandably so. Levi’s a great guy, love sitting with him on the bus.”
Mark Lee
Nickname: Marcus Aurelius
Specialties: Ancient History, Biblical and Middle Eastern History
Description: “I try to keep Michael and Levi apart as much as I can. I usually sit between them in the table scenario. I don’t always come up with an answer, but I can usually lend a second opinion in support or against an answer. I usually have inklings, and these inklings are sometimes right, so I stay on.”
Lee also uses “Mark Points” to determine how he personally would do in competitions.
“When I have the right answer, and I know I have the right answer and I say it, and then they’re all like ‘uh no, Mark, that’s probably not the right answer,’ and then they say their stupid answer and then they get it wrong. Then I get a “Mark Point.” It started with Mark Points, but now everyone keeps track of their personal points in the same fashion. It just makes me feel good about myself.”
Fun Fact: Has had the same hairstyle since December 27th 2010.
Teammates’ Description: “He doesn’t have quirks. He’s so normal! But that’s a good thing; he holds us down,” Walls said.
“He’s the sane one on the team,” Brown said. “He’s the calming influence and when the rest of us are all going off on tangents, he actually gets us back on track. He’s really good at making up answers that are right. He puts things together that turn out to be right.”
“He’s the least insane, most calm one,” Hank said. “He does “Mark Points.” Any time he gives an answer and we don’t go with it but it ends up right he gives himself a Mark Point. Once another team overheard us and gave “Mark Point” as an answer.”
