Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, July 5, 1994                   TAG: 9407050072
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BOTETOURT WINS U.S. VO-TECH QUIZ BOWL

Or maybe it should be VICAtory.

The team of five Botetourt Technical Education Center students that represented Virginia in the national Vocational Industrial Clubs of America Quiz Bowl in Kansas City, Mo., brought home the gold medal Friday.

It's the first time a Virginia team has won the gold in the VICA quiz competition. The team won five consecutive matches to come out on top of the 32-team field in the three day "Jeopardy"-like quiz competition.

"We're from a little country place, but we can hang with the big dogs," said Jim Bushong, the team's faculty adviser and coach.

Angela Reed, Jeremy Lilly, Greg Boothe, Mike Fridley and William Robert Chrimes answered questions about VICA, parliamentary procedure, general knowledge and current events.

Boothe said there were no stars on the team.

"If one of us hadn't been on the team, we probably wouldn't have won," he said. "It was just a big team effort."

Bushong declined to take any credit for the victory. "It was them, not me," he said. "They answered the questions. They did it all."

Bushong said the team was nervous and a little stiff at first, but gained confidence with each victory. By the end, they were studying other teams' techniques for buzzing in and using time to their advantage.

Lilly figured out that he could buy time by asking to hear the question again.

The team reached the national competition by winning a district competition in March that included most of the Roanoke Valley, and then the state competition in May.

Bushong says the Quiz Bowl was organized to enhance the image of vocational education by showing the academic prowess of vo-tech students.

For this team, the plan worked.

"There's a great bunch of kids on that team," said J.P. Jenkins, the school's principal. "They worked extremely hard, and they deserve everything they've gotten."