After a year hiatus, the Golden Globe is back at Montgomery City Elementary School. 

No, not the Golden Globe Award. It’s the R-II Elementary Academic Bowl Golden Globe that is awarded to the winner of the annual contest between Montgomery City and Jonesburg elementary schools.

MCE defeated JBE 340-280 in a contest that was held on Nov. 24 at the JBE Library. The event had two divisions – fourth and fifth-grade – and had two rounds in each division. The team with the most points wins.

All of the contestants answered questions on subjects such as math, geography, science and English. One of the contestants who turned in a strong showing was MCE fourth-grade student Rylan Elmore, who answered 15 questions correctly, including the first two questions of the contest. Rylan helped MCE outscore JBE 220-90 in the fourth-grade division.

“He took it today,” said MCE librarian Tara Polston, who coached the MCE team.

The other members of the MCE team were fourth-grade students Alva Powell, Cooper Benney and Lillian Powell and fifth-grade students Davin Clements, Ford Strube, Kambrya Mabry and Olivia Lin. Polston, whose daughter Madi competed in the R-II Academic Bowl years ago, said the members were selected based on their results in school.

“I told them I wanted well-rounded kids who could work together as a team,” she said.

Members of the JBE team were fourth-grade students Colton Parmalee, Everleigh Poggas, Merrin Schluss and Oliver Hasza and fifth-grade students Ezra Birt, Rory Hartman, Tucker Brooks and Willow Ford. Tucker and Willow competed in the Academic Bowl for the second time. Rory answered 14 questions correctly to lead the JBE team.

JBE librarian Angel Davis coached JBE’s team. She also created the winning prize, which looks like a spinning globe and had results of each contest.

“There was a globe that had been thrown out, so I kept the globe,” Davis said. “Then, when we decided to do this, we needed a traveling trophy. So I had this globe, so let’s break in the gold. It was looking pretty ratty, so I took it home over the summer and repainted it.” 

Cambrya, who competed in the Academic Bowl for the first time, enjoyed seeing the traveling Golden Globe being handed to her team.

“I like it,” she said. “I’m glad we got to take it home again to MCE.”

In the fourth-grade division, Lillian had four questions correct, two each in English and math.

“I really enjoyed it,” Lillian said. “I loved the math questions and science questions the best.”

MCE was outscored 190-120 in the fifth-grade division, but had an outstanding effort from Davin, who answered eight questions correctly. 

“I think it was really fun,” Davin said. “I was kind of nervous about losing, but we won.” 

The R-II Academic Bowl started in 2015. Last year, JBE won its first Golden Globe after beating MCE 370-310. The event wasn’t held twice due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

R-II Board President Maria Stille was the moderator.