Former GDS student Haughton Neppl knows a thing or two about Quiz Bowl, a trivia competition that covers topics such as history, science, literature and art.
When Neppl competed last April in the National Academic Quiz Tournament (NAQT), he placed 19th out of 251 students in the Individual Player Championships.
He was the first GDS player to place in the top 20 since Arthur Delot-Vilain ’21 placed first in 2021.
But Neppl does much more than compete in tournaments. Three years ago, while still at GDS, Neppl founded QB4ALL (“pronounced ‘Quiz Bowl for All’”), an organization that subsidizes tournament registration fees for low-income students.
His organization has teamed up with programs like International Academic Competitions (IAC)—a major organizer of K-12 academic tournaments—to cover registration fees for QB4ALL participants in the upcoming Washington, D.C. Winter Regional tournament on Jan. 31, which will be hosted at GDS (QB4ALL pays the remaining cost of the registration fees not covered by the IAC).
Since its creation, the organization has raised about $10,000 through donations. QB4ALL also helps organize tournaments with IAC; in return, IAC donates a portion of the registration fees to Neppl’s organization.
“Around middle school, I started to get the sense that there were lots of people doing [Quiz Bowl],” Neppl said, “but there were lots of people income-wise that were under-represented.”
Neppl left GDS before the start of this year and is currently homeschooled. He came to GDS in his freshman year, which was the 2023-24 school year.
On average, NAQT Quiz Bowl tournament registration costs $80 to $100 per team, with one to six people on each competing team. Each student must also pay a $25 registration fee. That means that the total price tag for schools bringing multiple teams can run close to $750.
Sue Ikenberry—a GDS history teacher—served as Neppl’s advisor during his time at GDS. “[Neppl] was a particularly strong student,” she said, “a student who you like being associated with.”
Ikenberry also served as former long-time faculty advisor for the GDS Quiz Bowl. She also coached History Bowl—a quiz competition about world history—and the It’s Academic team, a televised academic quiz-show.
As GDS’ Quiz Bowl coach, Ikenberry did everything she could to help her team attend tournaments. About 19 years ago, when some GDS students couldn’t afford the travel fees for a Quiz Bowl tournament, Ikenberry offered to share her room with a few students participating in the tournament.
“It was easy enough for me to live with two girls for a night,” she said. “And so by being able to pick up the hotel fee by putting it all under me, it made it possible for her [one student who roomed with Ikenberry] to go.
“We just went to McDonalds or something because we knew not everybody had the money [for food],” Ikenberry said. “Very occasionally, I paid for something. I won’t say I subsidized anybody, but to sort of say, ‘Oh here, I’ve got it; don’t worry about it.’”
“If you’re lucky enough in a household that is in a certain income bracket, it [participating in Quiz Bowl] might not be too difficult,” Neppl explained. “But in another income bracket, those fees might be prohibitive, such that if it’s something you’re interested in and passionate about, you potentially don’t have the chance to participate. And that didn’t sit right with me.”
QB4ALL also contacts middle and high schools throughout the DMV to recruit low-income students for Quiz Bowl.
“I’ve sent emails to principals of schools who I think might be a good fit for our program,” Neppl said. “That’s a part of our [QB4ALL’s] outreach, which is growing teams at low-income schools and even starting them from scratch.” (Neppl declined to share examples of schools he’s reached out to.)
“Quiz Bowl encourages students to want to know information,” Neppl said. “It’s a way to motivate students to learn outside of, say, a specific test they need to study for. It gives them that internal motivation.”
“It’s hugely valuable to kids,” Ikenberry said. “They get interested in learning stuff and they start reading more books. [Quiz Bowl] stimulates intellectual curiosity, and that stimulates better performance in classes.”
“Quiz Bowl gives people a chance to shine and to show off the knowledge that they’ve learned about the world around them,” Abigail Lund, the current faculty advisor of the GDS Quiz Bowl team and a high school Latin teacher, said.
As part of QB4ALL’s outreach, Neppl recently helped introduce an elementary school student with learning differences to Quiz Bowl. The student ultimately made it to regionals and will compete in the national tournament this April.
“He was a little nervous for that [the regional tournament], but he did it and he had the time of his life,” Neppl said. “He loved it, loved it, loved it.”
Neppl said that after the regional tournament, the student became so invested in Quiz Bowl that he began to spend his free periods checking out library books about the topics that were covered in the tournament.
“He [the student] was someone who really needed our program’s financial aid,” Neppl said. “I could help out financially to allow him to do something that he otherwise might have never gotten the chance to do. That made me really, really excited that I could make that kind of impact.”