photo by: Emma Delk

Sherrard Middle School History Bowl Team 1 and Team 2 and members pose with their Coach Dan Gatts. In the back row, from left, are Griffin Sturgil, Drew Marling, Brady Barnhart, Chloe Weekley, Colsen McCutcheon and Gatts. In the front row, from left, are Abby Allman, Kabe Blake and Izzie Dougherty.

Two Sherrard Middle School West Virginia History Bowl teams earned historic victories in the state tournament as the first school to take the top two spots on the podium, in addition to the first place team’s win making the school the Mountain State champion four years in a row.

Sherrard Middle School West Virginia History Bowl Team 2 defeated Sherrard Middle School West Virginia History Bowl Team 1 by a score of 28 to 20 to capture this year’s state title at the state championship final held in Charleston on April 29.

Coached by Dan Gatts and Jeff Stephens, this year’s championship-winning team consisted of Brady Barnhart, Drew Marling, Abby Allman and Griffin Sturgill. The Rams won five games to secure the 2025 crown.

Sherrard Middle School West Virginia History Bowl Team 1, made up of Kabe Blake, Colsen McCutcheon, Izzie Dougherty and Chloe Weekley, earned the distinction of second place at the state match.

All students took home a trophy for their efforts, along with Team 2 receiving Chromebooks and Team 1 receiving headsets.

Each game in the History Bowl consists of 60 questions split evenly between a team round, where teammates can discuss answers with each other, and a rapid-fire buzzer round, where students try to be the fastest to buzz in and answer a question.

Gatts estimated there are about 2,500 possible questions for students to answer. He said repeating questions to learn them was one of the keys to his students’ success.

“I don’t want to give away too many secrets, but usually the students have studied the questions so many times that by the time we’re a month before the state tournament, I read them a question, and they automatically know it,” Gatts said. “After a few words, they’re like, ‘Hey, I remember hearing this in practice,’ and they immediately ring in.”

The road to the podium for both teams began the summer before their eighth-grade year when Gatts handed the students a packet to study. These packets each covered one of the topics for the competition: arts, sports, cities and war.

“What makes a good candidate to compete in the history bowl is that they are not just smart but also hard-working, have a good work ethic and just have a love for West Virginia,” Gatts said. “Some of these students also had an interest in their category, so it all just kind of fell into place.”

In addition to picking interested students to compete, Gatts joked that he also “scouted” a couple of students, particularly if he thought they would excel in a certain category.

“I vividly remember Mr. Gatts calling me down to his classroom and just giving me a packet,” Dougherty said. “I had no idea I was joining the history bowl at the time, but he just said to me, ‘Hey, your category is art. You need to study this over the summer.'”

After a summer spent brushing up on their state’s history, the students began practicing in the classroom in August. In addition to what they learned in Gatts’s WV History class, the students also practiced after school two days a week.

“In the beginning and middle of the practice schedule, we used to spend half of our time studying independently or with a partner,” Barnhart said. “The other 45 minutes of practice we spent doing actual practice rounds. Towards the end, he [Gatts] used to call us in for rapid-fire questions and then put any questions we didn’t know into a set for us to practice.”

Marling said he learned so much about his home state during practices that it was “eye-opening.” McCutcheon, who specialized in cities for his team, added that he now can spot historical signs on car rides.

“The student’s parents tell me that on car rides now, when they read the signs on the road, their kid is like, ‘Hey, that’s my question,'” Gatts said. “Then they tell their parents or a relative a little bit about that information that they learned about it through history bowl.”

After memorizing facts and practicing their buzzer timing in the classroom, the team began its journey to The Culture Center in Charleston by winning the 9th annual Marshall County Schools West Virginia History Bowl in November. From there, the two SMS teams placed first and second at the Region VI West Virginia History Bowl in February, where they punched their ticket to the West Virginia Capitol Complex for the statewide contest.

Since the Sherrard teams went head-to-head multiple times in the lead-up to the state tournament, the students said there was a relaxed atmosphere between the teams during their final round of competition. Barnhart recalled the teams getting more competitive during practices than real games.

“In practice, it was a lot more competitive between us, which was funny because, for states, it was the complete opposite,” Barnart said. “I was really stressed out for regionals, but by the time we made it to states, I was just relaxed.”

Gatts said he was thrilled when both teams made it to the finals as, “No matter what, Sherrard would win.”

“Sometimes I make one really good team and a second team to give some competition to the first team,” Gatts noted. “This year, it was really even between the teams, and I could spread out the students. I tried to put different personalities on different teams so there was a little bit more coherency.”

The students are not the only ones setting records for the school, with Gatts racking up eight state titles. Before becoming a teacher at Sherrard Middle School, he previously led the Cameron High School Dragons to state victories in 2015, 2017 and 2018. Gatts’ Sherrard Middle School team also collected state trophies in 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Gatts said the secret to his success was simply having “great kids with great parents” that support Sherrard’s history bowl winning streak.

“Since we have four wins in a row, the students know that there’s going to be a lot of hard work going into the year,” Gatts said. “The current team members have been good recruiters to their seventh-grade friends, and they may mentor some of the new teams before they leave. I already have seventh graders coming to practices, and they’re ready to pick up the mantle.”