OJABA News

POSTED OCTOBER 16, 2018:

Membership enrollment concluded October 1; we have 209 member coaches this year. More than two thirds of this year's members have paid their fees; to those who still owe your fees, remember the deadline for payment is December 1.
Listed on the "Documents" page are links to the district and regional groupings by Class. Check these groupings to see where you will be playing your district and regional tournaments and who is hosting each of your tournaments. If you are a host, you should begin contacting the other teams assigned to each of your tournaments now; see the rules for time frames during which each of the tournaments should be played and for deadlines for setting tournament dates. If you are not hosting and you do not hear from your host coaches in a timely manner about setting dates, get in touch with your host coaches and remind them about setting dates. Later today, you will have received an email attached to which were the "Member List" for your class, so that you will be able to communicate with one another.

Remember, as detailed in the Rules, this year in grades 5&6, 6&7, and 8&9, Classes A and B will combine to play districts and regionals together, and Classes C and D will do the same. In 7&8 the four classes will play separately. At State Tournaments the four classes will play separatley at all grade levels.

Good luck with your teams this year, and remember, compete well but be sure to have fun as well.

POSTED JULY 18, 2018:

There are two major changes for 2018-2019:

(1) For the first time in at least twenty years, we are raising the fee for each team entered from $60 to $75. Mainly because of the cost of questions, we have had to borrow during the past two years to being able to be able to cover explenses through the end of each school year. Doing the math, based upon the number of teams entered during the past school year times $15, we should at least break even at the end of 2018-2019.

(2) In order to keep participating teams as close to home as possible, during districts and regionals, Classes A & B will compete together and Classes C & D will compete together. At State the four classes will compete separately as in the past. About one third of the teams in each class will advance to State, in some cases without having won a regional trophy. This is all explained in red in the updated rules.

As we did with the list of books that we significantly drew from for questions used in last year's competitions, we are again giving you and your team members a heads up on books (see new book list below) and subjects that we will emphasize in our questions for the coming year. We will especially draw questions from the following subject areas:

U.S. Presidents (numerical order, full names--including names not commonly known and extensions such as "Jr.," years in office, birth states, political parties, and Vice-presidents)

World Geography (countries, capitals, rivers, lakes, mountains, and location of each country by continent and as relates to other countries on its continent)

Chemical Elements (groups, symbols, name derivations)

U.S. States (capitals, postal abbreviations, rivers, lakes, mountains, and location of each state)

POSTED MAY 23, 2018:

Reading List for 2018-2019

We are again giving you a heads up concerning the source of some of the questions used in our tournaments of the current year. Some tossups and some sixty-second sets--scattered throughout the year in all four divisions--will be based upon the books listed below, which are Newbery Medal winners from the past one hundred years--at least one from each decade beginning with the 1920's. Most of our questions will come from other subject areas, just as in the past.

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña
A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck
The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg
Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt
The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong
Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
Daniel Boone by James Daugherty
Hitty, Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field

POSTED MAY 23, 2018: