A six-member team from Ridgeline High School in Liberty Lake claimed the championship of the KSPS Civics Bowl, defeating Liberty High School on the tournament’s deciding question to take home the title. The victory aired Monday, capping a competition that tested nearly 500 questions across eight competing teams.
The final question asked contestants to name the legal term for the process of absorbing an unincorporated area into an existing city. Ridgeline captain Talene Rivera described the tension of that closing moment: “The last question was what the term is for bringing an area that is not part of a city into a city.” The correct answer — “incorporation” — secured the win for Ridgeline after Liberty High School had actually buzzed in faster during the preceding 90-second lightning round.
A Young School Makes Its Mark
Ridgeline High School only opened its doors in 2021, making the championship all the more notable. The school is located in Liberty Lake, a community that itself did not exist until the early 2000s. The team was coached by Brittney Bergman and Suzanne Smith, and the six competitors — Rivera, Tessa Currin, Vivian Van Buren, Abby Clevenger, and alternates Mary Moore and Kate Taylor — prepared by meeting once a week before school to study and practice.
The breadth of the competition required serious preparation. Questions spanned local and state government, American and Washington state history, federal institutions, Native American governance structures, and even pop culture. Those questions were crafted by a team of nine writers and three editors working through the League of Women Voters.
Beth Pellicciotti, the League volunteer overseeing civic education efforts, expressed confidence in the students who competed. “These young people know so much,” she said. “It’s a very hopeful thing. They’re going to be very civically engaged.”
Behind the Production
While the broadcast episode runs just 28 minutes, filming the Civics Bowl takes considerably longer — roughly two and a half hours per episode. Guest question readers added a local flavor to the event, including Ribby the Redband Trout, the mascot of the Spokane Indians baseball team, along with Mayor Lisa Brown and a local newspaper editor.
The tournament honored the Ridgeline team at an evening ceremony at Spokane City Hall on Monday, giving the students a moment of public recognition for their academic achievement.
For several team members, the win comes as they prepare to move on to college. Rivera, 17, plans to attend Reed College in the fall, while Currin has set her sights on the University of Virginia, where she intends to study psychology. Their participation in a civics-focused academic competition reflects a broader push in Idaho and the Pacific Northwest to strengthen student understanding of government at every level — local, state, and federal.
Efforts to reinvigorate civics education have drawn renewed attention in recent years. Idaho lawmakers have been actively examining how schools are funded and what they teach, including a proposed overhaul of the state’s school funding formula that has been largely unchanged since the 1990s. For residents looking to understand how to engage with those decisions, resources like an Idaho podcast offering practical guidance on participating in local school board processes have emerged as useful tools for civic-minded families.
What Comes Next
With the Civics Bowl championship secured, the Ridgeline team will see its members head off to their respective colleges and future pursuits. Coaches Bergman and Smith will likely begin the process of building next year’s team, as the competition draws students from across the region each year. The League of Women Voters is expected to continue its role in developing and vetting questions for future tournaments, maintaining the program’s emphasis on government literacy and public engagement. For a school still in its early years, the championship represents a strong signal of what its students — and its community — are capable of achieving.