North Harford participated in the county Finance Bowl on November 13 and took home first and fifth place. The winning team includes senior Brett Williams, juniors Andrew Gerhardt, Julianna Spangler, and Mitchell Wittkamp.  

  The Finance Bowl consists of a contest of knowledge and personal finance, and a test and Jeopardy contest for those who make it into the top four. The placements for the competition featured North Harford in first, Aberdeen in second, C Milton Wright in third, Bel Air in fourth, and North Harford again in fifth place. “There were three rounds, and North Harford was first place in every round,” business teacher Eugene Liebel explains..  

  Junior Mitchell Wittkamp says the test itself included questions about tax evasion, crediting, finance laws, investing and government bonds.  “In the first round we did [the] test and it took the scores from each member and added them up with my scores and my other members. We had the highest score out of everyone” he adds.  Williams says that “initially they read off that another school was in the Jeopardy round and that we were fifth, and everyone was shocked because our team was supposed to be stacked, but they corrected it and we were in first.”  

      Andrew Gerhardt was the “spokesperson” for the team, but Spangler says there weren’t specific roles the group possessed. “We all had to work together. How one person performed affected the outcome of the team as a whole,” she states. Spangler also includes that “in the Jeopardy portion we talked briefly about a few questions”, but they felt strong about their knowledge and didn’t face any rough patches during the competition. 

     After the team was announced as first place champions, the winners looked back on the competition and shared a mutual feeling that it was a humbling and valuable experience. “The experience was nice because we needed teamwork in order to win the final round,” Wittkamp reminisces.  Spangler says “they announced third, second and first place while handing out awards and thanking everyone. We couldn’t see the scores during Jeopardy so when the round was over and we found out, it came as a surprise”. 

  North Harford High School will earn a banner in the business hallway that will be passed to next year’s champion, but the business students hope to succeed again and keep the banner for another year. The business department at NH won $250, and each student that participated earned $100. In March of 2019, NH was victorious as state champions, and the participants hope to bring more attention to their skilled business department.