Quizbowl in Oregon

[Angry Babies in Love]

So I was born in the Oregon Coast town of Newport, and lived there for quite some time. Today I was talking to one of my friends who attend Newport High School who said that his school now has a quizbowl team and plans to attend tournaments in Portland. Does anyone know what type or questions they would encounter at a Portland-area tournament? I haven't really ever seen anything about a pyramidal tournament in Oregon and was wondering if that's land or what?

[Important Bird Area]

A tournament known as the "Oregon Brain Bowl" has existed in past years (some information here). It is unclear whether this tournament took place in 2010; we were unable to find any results this spring when we were looking for an Oregon team to invite to HSNCT.

[rylltraka]

The HS quizbowl equivalent which I played in Southern Oregon in MS and HS (roughly 1997-2001) was called "Brain Bowl" and had an unusual short-tossup-only format. It did not appear to be efficiently run at the state level, but I may be mistaken.

[Angry Babies in Love]

OK thanks for the info. I'll definitely let the coach know about the forums and the archives and whatnot, but I don't know how much good it'll be considering they wouldn't have enough money to make it to the Bay Area to play in pyramidal tournaments, let alone to nationals.

(edit: made it less offensive to those who host speed tournaments)

[nadph]

If they only have the budget to make it down to one California tournament, I think their best bet would be this year's WCI, which they could probably fly down to.

(edit: fix link)

[cvdwightw]

OK thanks for the info. I'll definitely let the coach know about the forums and the archives and whatnot, but I don't know how much good it'll be considering they wouldn't have enough money to make it to the Bay Area to play in pyramidal tournaments, let alone to nationals.

(edit: made it less offensive to those who host speed tournaments)

As of last year Angelo Malabanan, formerly of Tulsa, was trying to field a team at Portland State and start up some kind of high school circuit. You may want to direct the coach to him.

[Angry Babies in Love]

If they only have the budget to make it down to one California tournament, I think their best bet would be this year's WCI, which they could probably fly down to.

(edit: fix link)

Yeah, I highly doubt that's possible. You know this whole recession thing? Well the Oregon coast has kinda been in that forever. I know the school district wouldn't have the money; the closed like a quarter of their elementary schools in the past few years. But I'll definitely try to see if it's possible.

[Unicolored Jay]

Is Washington too far away to drive to? Just wondering. I have no idea what goes on in Washington, by the way.

[rylltraka]

As an Oregonian myself, I can tell you that Washington (especially any meaningful part of Washington) is far, faaaaar away from Newport.

[Angry Babies in Love]

As an Oregonian myself, I can tell you that Washington (especially any meaningful part of Washington) is far, faaaaar away from Newport.

Yeah unless they'd be willing to stay overnight they probably wouldn't be able to do anything in the Puget Sound area.

[Unicolored Jay]

Oh. Well, I didn't know where Newport was.

[Angry Babies in Love]

Oh. Well, I didn't know where Newport was.

Haha, most people don't :P

[Mike Bentley]

There are college tournaments frequently held in Seattle, and occassionally in places like Walla Walla and Boise. We try to host about 2 high school tournaments per year in Seattle and welcome any Oregon teams that want to come to them.

[Angry Babies in Love]

There are college tournaments frequently held in Seattle, and occassionally in places like Walla Walla and Boise. We try to host about 2 high school tournaments per year in Seattle and welcome any Oregon teams that want to come to them.

Alright, I'll be sure to let them know.

[sc_from_or]

I know this is incredibly late response (shows how little time I have now to check these boards) but I sent an email to Angelo @ portland state about a year ago when he first got there. I also know I specifically mentioned Newport because I remembered that school being familiar with NAQT (I know they went to a NAQT HS championship in the late 90s) and they seemed to be really prominent in Oregon HS quiz bowl activities (HIgh 5, Science Bowl, Knowledge Master) and I suggested that he contact Newport (along with a few other schools) to see if they were interested in any quiz bowl activities in Portland. I never heard from him after that and since I havent seen any hs tourneys in Oregon noted here, I'm guessing he was not succesful.

When I was at the UO (and when it had a club back in 01 and 02), I tried contacting high schools to do a quiz bowl event in Eugene, but it seemed no one wanted to go to Eugene and just wanted to stay in their areas only, especially the Brain Bowl schools in Southern Oregon.

The best idea I can think of besides contacting Angelo would be to contact the host of High Five, Science Bowl, and Knowledge Master and ask them for a list of school contacts. I was able to get those lists 10 years ago and as far as I can tell, these events are still operational (not as sure on High Five, but it was the biggest when I was up there). Your friend might also consider contacting the OSAA and asking them if they would be interested in contacting the other schools and sponsoring a quiz bowl. Maybe NAQT could also help in this. I know their website has contacts for numerous high schools in Oregon.

I hope this helps. I know the Oregon Coast schools have never had much money or resources to dedicate to quiz bowl, but It would have been awesome if there had been some sort of quiz bowl activities on the coast when I was in high school (I'm from Seaside, three hours north of Newport) and hopefully, someone can get something set up there.

[Angry Babies in Love]

OK, I unfortunately haven't been able to get in touch with the coach out there yet, but I'll try again to get in contact with her and send some information.
Seaside is a very beautiful part of the Coast. Heck, it's the Oregon Coast. It's all beautiful haha.
Also does UO still have a club and if not would it be easy to start one? That's my second choice for college at the moment. I know it'd be tough b/c all of the tournaments are in Seattle and Boise, sadly.

[sc_from_or]

Seaside is a very beautiful part of the Coast. Heck, it's the Oregon Coast. It's all beautiful haha.

Now you're making me homesick....... How did I get stuck in California???? Anyways another rant.....

Also does UO still have a club and if not would it be easy to start one? That's my second choice for college at the moment. I know it'd be tough b/c all of the tournaments are in Seattle and Boise, sadly.

No, the UO doesnt have a club anymore. It died after the key leaders left in 2003. It wouldnt be too hard to get recognized by the student govt and they were cool with the whole concept of having a quiz bowl club. You have hoops to jump thru but that is every college student govt organization. Heck, I might even have a copy of the by laws that we had to set up for recognition that was approved before we could begin, if you wanted.

The difficulty may lie in getting students to participate. When CBI was around, the UO was usually among the strongest in the Northwest and there was usually 10-15 teams in the intermural tourney every year. However, in terms of serious quiz bowl activity, it was tough going getting anyone up for that on a regular basis. There would be talented players who just didnt have the ambition to do quiz bowl more than once or twice a year. Throw in the fact that Oregon didnt have a regular quiz bowl circuit like WA and parts of CA, therefore the UO wouldnt have the natural feeder system that the UW had. Thats where really hitting the recruting trail would come into play.

The time when the UO had a solid quizbowl team in 2001 and 2002, it was bolstered tremendously by the fact that we had a former Berkeley player who heard about my attempt to publicize the program and contacted me as soon as he got here. If you do go to Oregon you're going to have to do the same amount of advertising and publicizing as well to offset the natural disadvantage I mentioned in the last paragraph. It was done once and I know it can be done again, but someone does need to take that first step of constantly pushing and advertising for it.

Actually if you did get the club going and you had players, besides Seattle, we went to Berkeley and Stanford a few times as well (especially since the Northwest scene was almost non existent at that point) and the drive there was about the same distance as Boise.

Other note is that the student rec center had a couple of good buzzer systems that they used for the CBI tourneys, if you did go there, they should still have them and it would help save money for something else like trip expenses.

Anyways, I've blabbered about this far more in the last 20 minutes than I have in the last 8 years, but I hope this helps and If you have any other questions feel free to email me or post a question on the board.

[Angry Babies in Love]

Seaside is a very beautiful part of the Coast. Heck, it's the Oregon Coast. It's all beautiful haha.

Now you're making me homesick....... How did I get stuck in California???? Anyways another rant.....

Also does UO still have a club and if not would it be easy to start one? That's my second choice for college at the moment. I know it'd be tough b/c all of the tournaments are in Seattle and Boise, sadly.

No, the UO doesnt have a club anymore. It died after the key leaders left in 2003. It wouldnt be too hard to get recognized by the student govt and they were cool with the whole concept of having a quiz bowl club. You have hoops to jump thru but that is every college student govt organization. Heck, I might even have a copy of the by laws that we had to set up for recognition that was approved before we could begin, if you wanted.

The difficulty may lie in getting students to participate. When CBI was around, the UO was usually among the strongest in the Northwest and there was usually 10-15 teams in the intermural tourney every year. However, in terms of serious quiz bowl activity, it was tough going getting anyone up for that on a regular basis. There would be talented players who just didnt have the ambition to do quiz bowl more than once or twice a year. Throw in the fact that Oregon didnt have a regular quiz bowl circuit like WA and parts of CA, therefore the UO wouldnt have the natural feeder system that the UW had. Thats where really hitting the recruting trail would come into play.

The time when the UO had a solid quizbowl team in 2001 and 2002, it was bolstered tremendously by the fact that we had a former Berkeley player who heard about my attempt to publicize the program and contacted me as soon as he got here. If you do go to Oregon you're going to have to do the same amount of advertising and publicizing as well to offset the natural disadvantage I mentioned in the last paragraph. It was done once and I know it can be done again, but someone does need to take that first step of constantly pushing and advertising for it.

Actually if you did get the club going and you had players, besides Seattle, we went to Berkeley and Stanford a few times as well (especially since the Northwest scene was almost non existent at that point) and the drive there was about the same distance as Boise.

Other note is that the student rec center had a couple of good buzzer systems that they used for the CBI tourneys, if you did go there, they should still have them and it would help save money for something else like trip expenses.

Anyways, I've blabbered about this far more in the last 20 minutes than I have in the last 8 years, but I hope this helps and If you have any other questions feel free to email me or post a question on the board.

Alright cool, I'll let you know if I make it out there. I don't care if I have like a full-fledged program, just a few cool people to go to tournaments with. Being a lifelong Ducks fan, I think it'd be cool to represent U of O.

[Mike Bentley]

Seaside is a very beautiful part of the Coast. Heck, it's the Oregon Coast. It's all beautiful haha.

Now you're making me homesick....... How did I get stuck in California???? Anyways another rant.....

Also does UO still have a club and if not would it be easy to start one? That's my second choice for college at the moment. I know it'd be tough b/c all of the tournaments are in Seattle and Boise, sadly.

No, the UO doesnt have a club anymore. It died after the key leaders left in 2003. It wouldnt be too hard to get recognized by the student govt and they were cool with the whole concept of having a quiz bowl club. You have hoops to jump thru but that is every college student govt organization. Heck, I might even have a copy of the by laws that we had to set up for recognition that was approved before we could begin, if you wanted.

The difficulty may lie in getting students to participate. When CBI was around, the UO was usually among the strongest in the Northwest and there was usually 10-15 teams in the intermural tourney every year. However, in terms of serious quiz bowl activity, it was tough going getting anyone up for that on a regular basis. There would be talented players who just didnt have the ambition to do quiz bowl more than once or twice a year. Throw in the fact that Oregon didnt have a regular quiz bowl circuit like WA and parts of CA, therefore the UO wouldnt have the natural feeder system that the UW had. Thats where really hitting the recruting trail would come into play.

The time when the UO had a solid quizbowl team in 2001 and 2002, it was bolstered tremendously by the fact that we had a former Berkeley player who heard about my attempt to publicize the program and contacted me as soon as he got here. If you do go to Oregon you're going to have to do the same amount of advertising and publicizing as well to offset the natural disadvantage I mentioned in the last paragraph. It was done once and I know it can be done again, but someone does need to take that first step of constantly pushing and advertising for it.

Actually if you did get the club going and you had players, besides Seattle, we went to Berkeley and Stanford a few times as well (especially since the Northwest scene was almost non existent at that point) and the drive there was about the same distance as Boise.

Other note is that the student rec center had a couple of good buzzer systems that they used for the CBI tourneys, if you did go there, they should still have them and it would help save money for something else like trip expenses.

Anyways, I've blabbered about this far more in the last 20 minutes than I have in the last 8 years, but I hope this helps and If you have any other questions feel free to email me or post a question on the board.

Alright cool, I'll let you know if I make it out there. I don't care if I have like a full-fledged program, just a few cool people to go to tournaments with. Being a lifelong Ducks fan, I think it'd be cool to represent U of O.

You should be able to find at least a few teammates to start a club. We've had decent success recruiting people at UW and there isn't much of a high school circuit besides Knowledge Bowl.

Plus, Oregon is closer to California than UW, so you might get some people from the established high school circuit from California attending your OU. Your best bet is to do a lot of advertising--attending the activities fair, putting up flyers, e-mailing departments, getting in contact with old CBI organizers at the school, etc.

Anyway, if you do end up going to Oregon make sure to send me an e-mail.

[Angry Babies in Love]

Yeah I read somewhere that around 50% of UO students are from California. And like our (ok, their) entire football team is from California as well (more starters from Fresno than the entire state of Oregon) so there might be a few former quizballers there. Thanks, and I'll be sure to keep you guys updated.

[jazzerpoet]

Apparently, I have not checked this part of the boards in a long time, otherwise I would have posted something on this subject before now. So, with that said, here are the happenings in the Oregon quiz bowl circuit:

My initial plan was to form a team at Portland State. With a group of potential staffers and a good hosting location, I had hoped to jump-start the circuit. Unfortunately, my plans have been a complete disaster. I have tried and failed for the last year and a half to form a team at PSU. At the start of each quarter, I have sent out notices about the formation of a team and informational sessions/practices, and while a few people have showed up to one of these meetings (and no more than one person per meeting at that), there have been no repeat visits. Part of this I attribute to the unique makeup of the PSU student body: lots of commuters, non-traditional students, and adult education people just wanting to take a class every now and again. And part of this I attribute to the "Catch-22" of forming a student organization here: in order to start an organization, have a booth at an Activities Fairs, and reserve rooms, you need five people in your club; but I have not been able to recruit the requisite five members because they will not let me have a Fair booth or reserve practice rooms. For now, I am going to trudge along with this strategy for the remainder of the year, but I plan on changing tack for the next school year.

My hope was that by forming a collegiate team, we could host tournaments and get high schools involved with quiz bowl. And by having PSU as the focal point of the circuit, quiz bowl could trickle down and expand from the Portland metro area to the Willamette Valley to the rest of Oregon and SW Washington. But without a location to host tournaments (let alone potential staffers), that hope has been easily quashed. I mean, even with assistance from our friends at UW and Boise State, without a location there can be no tournaments.

So now, my new plan is to start from the roots up and hope something blossoms. Instead of focusing on the collegiate circuit to foster high school growth, I will focus on high schools to try to generate interest, in the hopes of fostering a collegiate circuit. This plan includes contacting the OSAA to inquire about adding Quiz Bowl to their list of recognized activities; contacting local schools individually to see if they are interested in forming a team (and if they are, offering my services as a coach/advisor until they get established and can run independently); and obtaining some sort of legal status for the nascent Quiz Bowl Alliance of Oregon, among other things.

As a side note, I am hoping that hosting NAQT Sectionals at Portland State (though I have no direct or indirect affiliation with the SCT bid, at the moment) will help to generate some buzz locally; at the very least, maybe I could find some PSU students interested in forming a team, or some community colleges that could use me as a coach/advisor.

Lastly, to Raynell (and anyone else who might attend a college or university in the Willamette Valley or anywhere within a two-hour drive of Portland), I gladly offer my knowledge, experience, and expertise in helping you to form a quiz bowl team and/or to host tournaments (if things progress to that level). In addition to what I previously mentioned, I also have a working buzzer system (albeit slightly falling apart) and old questions that may or may not be on any online archives. Contact me, as well as Mike Bentley, if you wind up at UO.

Anyway, I think I have rambled on for long enough. From now on, I will be sure to check this section of the boards periodically to make sure I stay in the loop, as well as keeping everyone else abreast on my own efforts.

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

Angelo, whatever you do, do not get OSAA involved. High school sports organizations being involved in quizbowl is a disaster and if you want to make a good quizbowl circuit grow there, you want to fight off OSAA with tooth and nail.

[jazzerpoet]

Angelo, whatever you do, do not get OSAA involved. High school sports organizations being involved in quizbowl is a disaster and if you want to make a good quizbowl circuit grow there, you want to fight off OSAA with tooth and nail.

Charlie, I understand your apprehension and disdain about involving HS athletics associations with quiz bowl. However, I think that such organizations can be useful to a certain extent. The two reasons why I am considering involving OSAA are: infrastructure and (for lack of a better word) legitimacy. With school conferences and a reserve of potential staffers at the ready, their infrastructure could help when a lack of such resources are available. As for legitimacy, I think most medium to large schools in urban/suburban areas would easily get on board with quiz bowl; but for small schools and schools in rural areas, associating quiz bowl with OSAA might make it more palatable for them to attempt. Of course, all of my assumptions about state organizations working with quiz bowl comes from OSSAA in Oklahoma, where although they involved schools throughout the state, they also continue to use inferior questions.

If anyone has any first-hand knowledge about OSAA, and if I should try to get OSAA recognition for quiz bowl, please let me know. If it is better not to include them, then that is what I will do. Thanks.

[AKKOLADE]

I think the five states that have had the most tie-in with official state organizations are Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Virginia, Illinois, and Kentucky. Kansas teams can't even play out of the state; from what I know, the questions used in both Kansas and Oklahoma are awful. Missouri's state format has been awful for a long time, and as I understand it, the state organization has taken steps to try and detract from participation in pyramidal quiz bowl in favor of their one-liners. Illinois' state format is typically viewed as a joke by serious teams in that state. Kentucky's KAAC format is probably the second best of the bunch, in that it doesn't specifically try to prevent people from attending pyramidal quiz bowl in that state, and the questions aren't as bad from what I know. Virginia's VHSL is probably the best of them all, with HSAPQ writing questions and a willingness to listen to their ideas about how quiz bowl should be run, but historically there have been quality issues with VHSL vs. the top question providers.

That said, not much has been gained in the way of benefits from affiliation with these state organizations, to my knowledge.

People from these states can expand more, but that's a quick run down for you.

[Rococo A Go Go]

Kentucky's KAAC format is probably the second best of the bunch, in that it doesn't specifically try to prevent people from attending pyramidal quiz bowl in that state, and the questions aren't as bad from what I know.

KAAC is set up just for academic competition, so dealing with them is a bit easier than dealing with sports organizations that don't know much about quizbowl and think of it as an afterthought that needs to be treated like they do all the other sports. We've been somewhat lucky in Kentucky that KAAC has decided to gradually implement better, more pyramidal questions and attempt to improve the format.

Having an organization like this is good about getting teams involved (just about every school in Kentucky from elementary though high school has an academic team) but the big problem is that an organization like this can get entrenched in doing things a certain way and be slow (or in other cases even resistant) to change. This means that if a state organization is established that uses bad quizbowl practices, it is very difficult to change things for the better. And I think that getting a sports organization involved could mean that they make very poor decisions. Of course if you could get them started out using good quizbowl, then maybe things would work out in Oregon.

I like Oregon, and I briefly considered attending UO after high school. I hope you all have success in establishing a good circuit out there.

[jazzerpoet]

Since there is no established quiz bowl circuit in Oregon, my plan would be to get them to use NAQT questions (or some other pyramidal format) for official tournaments. My hope is that the New Activities coordinator of OSAA would consult with and/or defer to me and my vast experience with quiz bowl, before choosing any question providers. Of course, if I had it my way, OSAA would not run the tournaments per se, as they would only be used as a means of promoting quiz bowl in the state. Ideally, all official tournaments would be run my organization, the Quiz Bowl Alliance of Oregon. Worst case scenario, Oregon adopts something similar to what is in place in Oklahoma, where teams are allowed to play whichever formats they choose, and schools are not limited to how many tournaments they can attend or where they can attend them (including any and all Nationals tournaments).

As a side note, the main problem with the current quiz bowl circuit in Oklahoma is that most coaches just do not know any better when it comes to choosing which tournaments to attend. Most schools either compete in only OSSAA format, or they have old coaches unwilling to reject their old ways for pyramidal questions; my alma mater, Booker T. Washington, is sadly part of the latter, even though they could easily compete at the national level in pyramidal formats. Luckily, schools like Edmond Memorial, Edmond Santa Fe, Drummond, and Hilldale seem to compete at NAQT Nationals every year. So, there is hope in Oklahoma for quality quiz bowl; HS programs just need to be infused with some new blood.

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

An athletic organization being given control of quizbowl means you simply will not be allowed to run the tournaments. There is absolutely no way I can imagine they will give you that level of control over something they oversee.

Worst case scenario, Oregon adopts something similar to what is in place in Oklahoma, where teams are allowed to play whichever formats they choose, and schools are not limited to how many tournaments they can attend or where they can attend them (including any and all Nationals tournaments).

I can't emphasize enough that this is NOT the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario is something like this: OSAA takes over quizbowl, implements an insane format some coaches come up with who don't know any better that has 20% computation because it "mirrors the curriculum," gets insanely cheap bids on the state contract from Questions Galore that they won't turn down, starts imposing nonsensical rules that limit how many days players can play, how many miles they can travel, ban players from playing in opens or from using their dual credit eligibility that NAQT and ACF both allow, maybe throws in a ban on getting bids to nationals for good measure. These are all literally things that an athletic organization getting involved in quizbowl has led to in a single state (Missouri). One athletic organization ruined the quizbowl circuit here that much. Missouri isn't even the most broken state with an athletic organization involved (that honor goes to Kansas, the North Korea of quizbowl since we literally have no idea what even happens there). Contacting OSAA is playing with fire.

[David Riley]

Angelo, your points are well taken with regard to "legitimacy". But Charlie and Fred are right. If you want to promote good quiz bowl, then involving the OSAA is hardly worth it. Continue to do all the promotion you can, it might take awhile and you might end up with a much smaller numnber of teams, but the result will be much more satisying. We've come a long way in Illinois in the past ten years--we have a full schedule of good tournaments-- but we still have a long way to go before good quiz bowl is the norm here.

[kayli]

A good thing about starting a completely new quizbowl circuit in an area is that you can start off with the best questions. You avoid having to try to convince coaches to go to your non-QG tournament and avoid having to compete with QG in that area. I think the best way to promote quizbowl within any state is to start with the universities and have them host one or two good tournaments a year. Hosting an NAQT state championship always helps because that gives teams an incentive to compete more and do well because it could get them qualification for nationals which looks good to their high schools. If you have 3 or so universities each hosting one or two tournaments, that establishes a small circuit. Eventually good teams will start trying to host tournaments for money in which case it's a good idea to have people from university quizbowl teams help out so that this can continue for a while.

Also, all of this is going to be very slow in progress. You might only have one university hosting quizbowl tournaments for a while. But, I have no doubt that once more teams play quizbowl there will be a high demand for quizbowl tournaments in the area, and someone will fill that demand.

[sc_from_or]

Wow, I didnt think there would be this much discussion about Oregon QB ever......

As for the OSAA, I dont think they are some evil organization that go out and would intentionally destroy quiz bowl, but I do think that the absolute best plan should be for them to not be involved. They have no experience at all in regards to quiz bowl which would make me hesitate to recommend them for any involvement. I know I suggested earlier that someone could contact them regarding this (I was thinking this idea as a solution for the ultimate problem in the next paragraph), but hearing some of the points about other examples of this did make me reconsider this option.

The ultimate problem with Oregon is that whatever quizbowl is in Oregon is so disorganized that it defies a proper description. You have several different small quizbowl leagues or events throughout the state each using their own format. What someone has to do is to tie these participants from these leagues and events together into some sort of group or alliance that would work together to have a statewide league or event. When I was at the UO, that was what we attempted to do. Obviously we failed at this because we underestimated the second problem with organizing Oregon quizbowl, which was that a lot of the folks in Oregon associate quizbowl with something you do once a year maybe twice at the most, not something you do on a regular basis.

This issue is why I ultimately think that your club needs to do the legwork in organizing because you have a better understanding of how quizbowl can be done than the OSAA. If you can convince the coaches at these schools that this is something that would be worth more of their time than one or two weekends a year, then I think you have a chance to make it work. Like Oklahoma, though I suspect some of them wont change their ways, either.

I know I sent you a list of high schools that were active in quizbowl activities in Oregon. If you need I can look thru my old emails and send it again. But if I was in Oregon again and this was my goal, I'd start at the individual high schools (there arent a huge number, maybe 30 excluding the Southern Oregon schools which showed a real lack of interest in going to Portland or even Eugene) and see if you cant get them talking to each other and willing to participate in something in Portland.

I know that can sound daunting, but I do wish you the best of luck.

[Important Bird Area]

Resurrected this topic from the archives to note that I will be running a February tournament in Portland.

[Great Bustard]

Yeah, Stoller (a middle school in Portland) came out of the blue to win History Bowl middle school nationals. Their best players are now at two different high schools - this is going to lead to good things. They are talented and looking to play more, and it's great to see NAQT run an event in Oregon too. NHBB Oregon will be at Rainier on Jan. 25.