Hermiston High School students Dillon Herron, Joey Gerguson and Gavin Doherty pose for a photo on Nov. 17, 2021, during a Knowledge Bowl meet at Echo High School. Ferguson, the team captain, is a senior, as is Doherty. Herron is a junior.

HERMISTON — Take the number of legs on Santa’s reindeer from the number of geese a-laying in the entire song “The 12 Days of Christmas,” and what is the answer? If you answered six, you might be a good fit for Hermiston High School’s Knowledge Bowl team.

Of course, you would also have to be a HHS student.

Big things are happening for Hermiston’s Knowledge Bowl bunch, according to John Lauck. Lauck, a retired HHS teacher, is the school’s Knowledge Bowl team co-advisor. He works with Maggie Hughes-Boyd, fellow co-advisor and high school counselor.

Their team competes against teams from Umatilla, Echo, Helix and Stanfield in a local Oregon league. Pilot Rock and a few Washington schools soon may be competing against Hermiston, too.

The big news, Lauck said, is this year’s team is large. The team boasts at least 17 students who appear at practices, he said. He said this is enough students to form four teams and is the largest group he can remember.

Schools will convene for a competition Jan. 12, 2022, at 4 p.m. at Hermiston High School, 600 S. First St., Hermiston. At the competition, there will be three rounds of 50 questions. Teams, each with three to five members, will answer questions. When they have an answer, they will hit a buzzer and respond.

Questions are difficult, he said, and they can be on many topics, including math, current events, art and biology.

A dinner break is scheduled for the students after round two. After dinner, the teams compete for a third round, then a final for the top three teams.

He said the students seemed to enjoy the last meet, which took place Nov. 17 in Echo. Hermiston teams took first and third at that meet, which was the school’s first Knowledge Bowl competition of 2021.

It was nice to have this meet, the advisor said, as the last meet was in 2020. The 2020 meet was the only meet that year, a small competition in Echo that included one Hermiston team and two Echo teams.

This year’s team includes experienced and new competitors, he said. Among the competitors are three seniors and a handful of promising young freshmen. He said he expects them to do well, depending on the other teams that appear at future meets.

Lauck said he is hopeful his students can face off against bigger schools in Washington.

“Some of them are just outstanding,” he said of the Washington teams, but he added the Hermiston students are good, too, and the competition should be interesting.

Historically, he said, Hermiston High performs well at local Knowledge Bowl meets. This is the way it should be, Lauck said, as Hermiston is a comparatively large school. Echo, though, is a competitive team that “should be hard to beat.” Helix, too, has had good teams.

“You’d be amazed what these kids know,” Lauck said, “especially when they work as a group.”