Winners of the 2024 Atchison County Battle of the Books was the Fairfax team Six Feet Below Heroes, which included Alex Pickard, Zach Koop, Ava Oswald, and Wendy Hurst.
The Mule Barn Theatre Guild recognized Betsy Chapin for her 18 years of organizing Atchison County’s Battle of the Books and for the many decades of inspiring children to open a book and read.
The Fairfax team A Place Where The Winners Hang included Alex Wintz, Lela Wright, Mackenzie Oswald, and Delaney Oswald.
The Fairfax team Once Upon The Winners included Ryann Salmond, Addy Giddinge, Emmett Umbarger, and Aspyn Fast.
The Rock Port team Rockin’ Rollin’ Readers included Kinsley Nuckolls, Bertie Meyerkorth, Isaac Dougherty, and Archer Meyerkorth.
The Rock Port team Night Readers included Locke Chaney, Harper Wood, Ali Ellis, and Kipton Waigand.
The Chapter Masters team included Jaina Murray, Saige Dorrel, and Malachi Davis.
The Tarkio team A.B.B.L.2Read included Aliyah Wilke, Bryar Wennihan, Brinkley Wright, and Landry Hurst.
The 2024 Atchison County Battle of the Books took place on Friday, March 22, at the Tarkio Resource Center. There were seven teams of fourth through sixth graders from all three school districts in the county. The children were served pizza, water and cookies before the battle started to get their creative juices flowing. All competing teams have the hopes of signing the famous giant yellow pencil and getting the honor of taking it back to their school displaying that the school was home to the 2024 Battle of the Books Champions.
There are two challenges of 12 rounds of questions. If a team made it through the first challenge and scored higher than others then they moved on to the final challenge. In the first challenge each team is given a statement about each of the 12 books, amounting to 12 rounds for each team. If the teams guess the correct title, they received one point, and another point if they guess the correct author.
After the first challenge the total possible points were 24 and this is what each of the seven teams scores were: 6 Feet Below Heroes, 20 Points; A.B.B.L.2READ, 20 Points; Chapter Masters, 18 Points; Once Upon a Winner, 17 Points; Night Readers, 16 Points; Rockin’ Rollin’ Readers, 16 Points; and A Place Where the Winners Hang, 16 Points. The top four teams in the first challenge got to move on to the final challenge where they each had 12 more challenging questions. The same scoring system applied (one point for correct title and one point for correct author). The standings of the teams after the final challenge are as follows: first place, 6 Feet Below Heroes, 20 points; and second place, Once Upon a Winner, 16 points. Chapter Masters and A.B.B.L.2READ tied for third place with 14 points each.
The top four most read books were “The Lion of Mars,” “Worst-Case Collin,” “One Kid’s Trash,” and “Once Upon a Camel.” All 12 books totaled 3,243 pages. The top readers were: first place, Landry Hurst, 12 books, A.B.B.L.2READ; and second place, Harper Wood, 11 books, Night Readers. There was a tie for third place between Kinsley Nuckolls, 10 books, Rockin’ Rollin’ Readers, and Emmett Umbarger, 10 books, Once Upon a Winner.
Many individuals and organizations made the 2024 Battle of the Books a success. ACDC provided a grant to buy multiple copies of the 12 Mark Twain Winners for each school, the food, and the prizes. The Atchison County Library bought extra books for each library branch. All three schools encourage the fourth-sixth graders to participate and the Mule Barn Theatre Guild has been endorsing and supporting this event since 2008.
