Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Executive Director of The National Constitution Bee Claudia Henneberry in studio to explain the dynamics of the Constitution Bee’s second half and final rounds.Â
Leahy: With us, the executive director of the National Constitution Bee, Claudia Henneberry. It will be held here in Brentwood on Saturday, October 23rd, at the Spring Hill Suites in Brentwood. Got it right this time.
Henneberry: Very good.
Leahy: Thank you very much, Claudia. And secondary school students, grades eight through twelve, are eligible to participate. The winner of the National Constitution Bee gets a $10,000 educational scholarship. Second place, $5,000. 3rd place, $2,500.
Now, Claudia, you’re telling us about what happens when we’ll probably have 25 kids or so maybe 30, maybe 40. But we’ll get it down to, let’s say, the essay round, where six to 10 kids each deliver two-minute oral presentations to the panel of judges and the audience. Who are the judges this year?
Henneberry: Stevie Jorno, Jack Massari, and me.
Leahy: Jack is an entrepreneur.
Henneberry: An entrepreneur.
Leahy:Â And what is Steve’s background?
Henneberry: Stevie actually works for a senator. I believe he still resides in town until he has to travel to D.C.
Leahy: A younger kid who’s on the ball and knows a lot about history in the Constitution. Very recent graduate at Belmont Univerity. So we got a good mix on the judges. So you’ve got to narrow it down to what the final three from these essays?
Henneberry: The final three preferably after my favorite part. Of course, in the presentation of the essay answers, we choose the student who has the best command, the best understanding of concepts, and anything that we believe is pertinent to be the champion. We sort of narrow it down.
Leahy: It goes from six to ten down to three. I think you’ve been a judge for every year, right? The past four years.
Henneberry: Well, yeah. I had to be.
Leahy: Has it been in the discussion among the judges, does a consensus develop as to who the three best are?
Henneberry: Well, we try to keep up with it. As the students are speaking, we try to keep up. We make little notes to ourselves, and then we share with each other what our assessment is and then we narrow it down.
And we get our top three. Sometimes it’s top five, and we have to go into level four questions, which are hopefully the hardest. And the students are anxious. They’re very anxious. You can see the tension.
Leahy: Now the final round is the championship round.
Henneberry: Yes.
Leahy: Let’s say the three finalists and each finalist then in the round, if they get that question right, they stay. But if they get it wrong and the other two get it right, they’re out.
Henneberry: They’re out.
Leahy: And then it’s down to two.
Henneberry: Yes.
Leahy: And if both get the question wrong, then they do it again until one gets it right and one gets it wrong. It’s a little bit dramatic at that point, isn’t it?
Henneberry: It’s very dramatic. You can see it in the children, you can see it in their persona. They get very, very anxious. They have studied for this Bee in advance.
Leahy: It’s their time. It’s their Super Bowl in a way. And of course, if they make it to the final round and then there’s three in the final round, they’re guaranteed to get at least a $2,500 scholarship.
It’s very exciting to be in that final round for these kids because they know they’re getting some big money. It’s just a question of how big is the money they’re going to get that day.
Henneberry: It’s pretty obvious by that time, to the judges, which student has the best command of all the information that they’ve been given in our book and all of the facts and the concepts.
Especially the concepts they have to understand the concepts. And we have been so impressed in the past four years and this is our fifth year of having a Constitution Bee. We’ve been so impressed with the students we’ve had.
Leahy: And one of the things I think that you’ve really worked on very, very hard is to try to have each question in each level of questions at the same level of difficulty.
Henneberry: That’s very difficult to do.
Leahy: It really is. And I would say probably in our first year, we didn’t do as good a job in terms of having consistency at the level of difficulty.
Henneberry: No.
Leahy: But I think, thanks to you working at it for five years now…
Henneberry: It was a work in progress.
Leahy: Now I have a high level of confidence that when you get to level four questions, they’re all going to be pretty difficult. But if you’ve studied, you can answer it. That’s what I think.
Henneberry: I hope they’re just as difficult as we need them to be.
Leahy: But not too difficult.
Henneberry: I mean, they’re difficult enough.
Leahy: So the answer is there if you’ve done your homework.
Henneberry: Yeah, it is. It’s definitely there. If it’s in the book, it can be a question.
Leahy: And you talk about drama. And typically, we didn’t plan this out. But every one of these has started at about 9:00 and ends about 1:00.
Henneberry: Well, 2:00 last year. (Chuckles)Â
Leahy: Was it 2:00 last year?
Henneberry: Yeah, it dragged on.
Leahy: It moves so fast for me as the master ceremonies. But then and then I’ve got to look to the judges sometimes, right as the MC to see, did we get that right? Did we make a mistake? So the judges play a very important role.
Henneberry: You mean you look at me. (Laughter)
Leahy: That’s what I mean. The lead judge. exactly. Chief judge. (Leahy laughs) In the championship round, the tiebreaker is just it’s a lot of fun to watch. And once it’s over, the kids can relax.
Leahy: Exactly.
Henneberry: And the judges are overwhelmed.
Leahy: One kid who did very well in the previous year and didn’t make it to the finals last year, but was a really gracious kid. And he’s coming back again this year.
Henneberry: Excellent.
Leahy: And so we’ll see how they’ll turn out. Claudia Henneberry what a delight it is to have you in here.
Henneberry: Thank you so much. I appreciate that.
Leahy: It’s great having you here. And, of course, the National Constitution Bee. Sign up and get a chance to win money for college or any other educational purpose. This is going to be great. We’re looking forward to it. Thank you for what you’ve done for the country. I appreciate it.
Henneberry: Thank you.
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
