DOUGLAS COUNTY, Ga. — WSB is gearing up for its 30th season of High Q, a trivia gameshow hosted by Channel 2's Katie Walls that features the brightest students from high schools across North Georgia.
The 29th season champion, Douglas County High School, is guaranteed a spot on the first show of the upcoming season, but viewers will notice several new faces.
Three of the four team members who took the self-proclaimed Nerd Herd to victory are headed to college. Parth Patel plans to major in neuroscience at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee, and Christopher Stevens is headed to Tulane University, in New Orleans, Louisiana, to study molecular biology and public health.
Former team captain, Josiah Takang, is moving to Macon to attend Mercer University but not before giving wise words of advice to the future of Douglas County's Scholar Bowl Team, which now includes his younger brother.
"Learn how to work as a team together and become a really cohesive team by the end of the season," says Takang.
Coach Vickie Burnett has been teaching in Douglas County for 18 years and coaching the Scholar Bowl Team for 11 years.
"We have only gotten past the third round once, and last year was super exciting, because we got to go all the way," says Burnett.
Equally exciting was the amount of money each player won. High Q is sponsored by the supermarket Ingles, who donates $5,000 to the winning team and $3,000 to the runner-up. The money is divided equally amongst the team members for college.
"I'm going to use a lot of that money for books, because they're expensive," says Patel.
A championship title requires practice and strategy.
"Anything that we thought Lloyd might think, we tried to anticipate that," says Burnett. High Q's judge and academic advisor, Lloyd Bush, has been writing questions for High Q since its inception.
Since High Q airs every weekend, Burnett shared with Walls that watching former High Q episodes online every Monday became a tradition.
"It's great because they're on the website. The first thing we would do [Monday] was to see if they were up to watch, and we could replay them," says Burnett.
Despite introducing new team members, Burnett is confident the Tigers will come out with a roar.
"We do have some good strong leadership again this year, and I think we'll do well," she says.
The first episode of Season 30 will air at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 27.
WSBTV
