ANAHEIM : Money Is Quiz Team’s Big Question

It might seem to be a tough question for the four seniors on Loara High School’s championship Kiwanis Bowl team.

Having crushed its Orange County and Nevada opposition in three competitions in the past six weeks, the five-member team is now eligible for the World Series of high school quiz bowl competitions, the Texaco Star National Academic Championship to be held in Houston June 6-12.

There’s a hitch. Loara’s graduation is scheduled for June 11.

Question to the seniors on the team: Do you give up the lifelong memory of walking down the aisle with your classmates to go to the competition?

“If we get the money to go, we go,” said Jayson Fadger, 18, slam-dunking the query as if he’d been asked the color of Little Red Riding Hood’s bonnet. “That’s not even a question.”

But getting the money is a $3,000 question, said teacher Linda Esping. That is how much it would cost to send the team to the competition, and Principal Barry Escoe has already informed the members that the school can’t afford it.

“I have been told the local Kiwanis club will help us, and I’m sure some of the teachers will chip in, but we are going to need to find other sponsors if we go,” Esping said. And despite the team’s eagerness, she also wants the seniors to consider what they’ll be giving up. (There is one junior on the team.)

“Graduation is important,” she said. She has sent away for a videotape of last year’s national competition to make sure the team will be competitive.

But the team members--Fadger, captain Chris Spiro, Van Tran, Dong Kim and junior Joyzelle Davis--want to go to Texas for two basic reasons.

First, there is the $10,000 scholarship that each would get if the team beats the 81 other teams, or the $5,000 scholarships they would get if they finish second. Spiro, Tran and Kim have all been accepted to prestigious universities, while Fadger plans to defer college to concentrate on his trading card business.

Second, there’s the matter of pride. “We also want to see how we compare to the rest of the nation,” Spiro said.

To get to this point, the team first defeated seven schools in the regional Kiwanis Bowl competition Feb. 24, then defeated four regional champions to win the Orange County title, beating Servite High School in the finals March 13. Three days later, the team swept two games from Las Vegas’ El Dorado High School, Nevada’s champion.

Only in the county finals against Servite was the game close.

In the games, a moderator asks questions in such categories as history, literature, music, sports and current events. The team’s five members are each given a buzzer and can hit it when they think they know the answer. Correct answers are worth four points, and bonus questions, earned every time a team gets 30 points, are worth two to five points.