Blacksburg High grad takes trivia to the next level

Answer: A childhood dream of 2012 Blacksburg High School graduate Sam Bernhard.
Question: What is to be a contestant on “Jeopardy!”?

This fall the 19-year-old lived that dream when he competed on the television game show famous for giving answers as clues. His dream is scheduled to be aired across the country on Dec. 11.
“It was a pretty surreal experience,” Bernhard said.

A sophomore double-majoring politics and environmental studies in at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, Bernhard grew up watching “Jeopardy!” with his family and took a particularly strong interest in it when he joined Blacksburg’s Scholastic Bowl team during his junior year.

“When he got involved in Quiz Bowl in high school, he watched it religiously,” said his mother, Laura Bernhard.

She said during that time it was a common sight to find her son racing home from soccer practice or other extracurricular activities to compete against family members, friends, or whomever just happened to be present and watching the quiz show.

The constant viewing likely paid off for the then-high school student. Blacksburg High School Quiz Bowl coach Matt Beeken said Sam Bernhard didn’t start off his Quiz Bowl career as the strongest player, but that changed by the young man’s senior season.

“By his senior year he’d become our team captain. He was our strongest player,” Beeken said.

In January, Sam decided to try his hand at the real thing and took Jeopardy’s online test, from which he qualified for a live audition in Detroit in July.

There Sam Bernhard said he learned he was among 2,500 to qualify for the audition from the more than 100,000 who took the online test. Of those 2,500 auditioning, only 400 would be invited to participate in the real show in Los Angeles.

“I was by far the youngest person there,” Sam said.

As a member of Oberlin’s men’s soccer team, Sam was already on campus for preseason practice in August when he received the call informing him he’d made the cut.

At the end of September he traveled to Los Angeles, where for the first time he experienced all that comes with preparing to compete on TV and in front of a live studio audience.

“It was the first time in my life I ever wore makeup,” he said.

During the show, the lifelong trivia lover said the difficulty of the questions didn’t surprise him nearly as much as the difficulty of mastering buzzing in to answer them.

“It’s really much harder to ring in the buzzer, to get the timing right on that, than I’d imagined,” he said.

So how did the Blacksburg alum fair at buzzing in against his opponents?

People will just have to tune in to find out. That’s what he’s been telling them for months, Sam said.

Laura Bernhard said that might be a little difficult for some members of her son’s immediate family, who relocated to Evansville, Ohio after Sam’s high school graduation.

There the show airs at 3:30 p.m., when most people are still at work, she said.

Sam Bernhard will undoubtedly have a large cheering section when the show hits the WDBJ (Channel 7) air waves in the New River Valley at its normal 7:30 p.m. time.

Beeken said the Blacksburg Quiz Bowl team has moved up their Dec. 11 match against Christiansburg in order to make sure it will be over in time for them to cheer for their former teammate as he participates at the next level.

“I guess ‘Jeopardy!’ is like the pros of Quiz Bowl,” Beeken said.

Applying for an academic future

ELLISTON – Snack trays, decorative shirts and door prizes filled the Eastern Montgomery High School library on Wednesday.

No, this wasn’t an elaborate bridal shower, though many students were celebrating the start of the next chapter of their lives.

The members of the Class of 2014 were among students in 32 high schools across the state chosen to take part in the Virginia College Application Week, a period from Nov. 18-22, sponsored by the Virginia Secretary of Education’s Office in which seniors can apply to certain colleges free of charge.

The school took full advantage of the waived fees Wednesday by holding an all-day college application event and allowing any student who filled out an application to partake in the spoils of the celebration.

“We want to reward students for their efforts in applying to college,” said school principal Danny Knott.

Knott said he couldn’t be sure of how many members of the school’s Class of 2013 applied to college, but that 48 percent of their graduating class last year was accepted.

Montgomery County Public Schools On-Time Graduate Coordinator Jeanne Allen said the State Council for Higher Education selected schools for the program based on their low-socioeconomic statuses and targeted areas with a high percentage of potential first-generation college students.

Allen said an invitation to participate was sent to a combined 59 independent college and public universities throughout Virginia and 29 had responded by waiving the application fee.

Students could also apply to any Virginia community college free of charge.

She added that East Mont was the only high school in the New River and Roanoke valleys selected for the program, which she believes can greatly benefit many of the students.

“The biggest advantage is taking advantage of the fee waiving and giving kids who otherwise wouldn’t be going to college an opportunity to fill out an application and encourage them that maybe this [college] is something they can do,” Allen said.

Allen said New River Valley Community College career coach Jon Cash and school guidance councilor Holly Murden had worked with the students during their English classes to help prepare in advance all transcripts, essays and resumes needed to help streamline the online application process.
Each students’ information was put into a packet, which they were allowed to pick up in the library.

They applied using the library’s computers throughout the day.

Murden said volunteers were also available to assist the students with the application process.

Cody Claxton was one of many students who spent part of the day applying to multiple Virginia colleges he said he otherwise wouldn’t have even considered.

“Since we’re getting the fee waived, we figured we had nothing to lose,” Claxton said.

Claxton applied to three state schools Wednesday and saved an estimated $130 in application fees.

Other students, such as Amber Robertson, said the waived fees were the only reason she was applying to college this fall.

“I was going to wait a year if possible to go to college, but I mean, this is free, so I’ll just go ahead and do it now,” she said.

Robertson, who aims to study nursing, said the help the school provided in organizing each student’s application materials made the process of applying to college very easy.

By the end of the day, 53 of the school’s 60 seniors went through that process, with five students absent and only two declining to participate.

Allen said a total of 77 applications were filed, 55 of which were to four-year colleges, 13 to community colleges and nine to trade schools.
Each student who applied received a free shirts and became eligible to win a door prize, including one of 12 $25 gift cards, which Allen said were made possible by donations from 20 local businesses.
Christiansburg’s Shelor Motor Mile donated three tool kits, which were raffled off to students hoping to further their education at trade schools.

Allen, who worked as a guidance counselor at the school prior to her current position, said the event was a prime example of the type of atmosphere the school hoped to give students in that part of the county.

“We have so many kids from low-income families that don’t know what they can do…These kids need that encouragement, they need that support system that a family-oriented school like East Mont can provide,” Allen said.

Man denied bond again in bomb threat case

A Christiansburg man charged earlier this month with threatening to bomb his rental unit was again denied bond.

Caleb Elijah Haxton, 20, appeared in Montgomery County Circuit Court on Wednesday to appeal a previous ruling from General District Court in which he was denied bond.

Haxton, who was charged with making threats to bomb the rental unit he was being evicted from, was arrested Nov. 7 after police executed a search warrant at his residence and found a suspicious device.
County Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Dean Manor said investigators with the Christiansburg Police Department and Virginia State Police Bomb Squad Unit responded to Alleghany Street about 10 p.m. on Nov. 6 for a report of a bomb threat.

On the porch of the residence in the garbage, officers located a plastic bottle wrapped in duct tape that contained a bluish liquid and had red wire attached, Manor said. Crews took an X-ray of the bottle and discovered it had electrical components.

The device was detonated in the early morning hours of Nov. 7, authorities have said.
Haxton was located at the Rodeway Inn on Bristol Drive.

According to a search warrant filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court, officers seized a circuit board, speaker wire, duct tape, a small memo book and three pieces of notebook paper containing writings and drawings from Haxton’s residence. Manor said a list of ingredients and a diagram of the device was found written on the paper.

Haxton told officers that he was using the device as a scare tactic but thought better of it and threw it away, Manor said. He also told police that he had a history with mental health issues and had thoughts of shooting or stabbing others, according to Manor’s summary of the case.

Haxton’s lawyer, Matt Roberts, asked his client about his mental health issues on Wednesday, and Haxton testified that he had a couple misdemeanors as a minor and had been placed in two different mental institutions. He said he attacked his brother when he was 14 because he was mad at him, and he attempted to hang himself “due to family issues” about two years later.

He said he has been in therapy for bipolar disorder, manic depression, Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Roberts told Judge Marcus Long that Haxton would continue therapy if released on bond, but Manor said the prosecution believes Haxton would pose a danger to the community or to himself if released.
Long denied bond. Haxton’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 7.

“I know you’ve got some issues, and I wish there was a way we could deal with those,” Long told Haxton. “But, unfortunately, there’s not at this time.”

Innovation Network reaches money goal

Roanoke-Blacksburg Innovation Network’s crowd-funding campaign to promote the region’s technology scene hit its goal on Friday morning, three days before the final deadline.

The $100,000 it raised from 52 contributors will be used to fund a new chapter in RBIN’s efforts to create an innovation ecosystem. It will be coupled with money raised through more traditional efforts to begin hosting more events and hire an executive director sometime next month.

Had the campaign not hit its goal, all the donations up to that point would have been refunded. It has passed that threshold, but can still keep going. As of Friday afternoon, it had raised $100,140.

The idea behind RBIN was born on a dinner napkin at a Blacksburg restaurant in 2010. With a world-class research institution, dense population of college students, an engaged business community and new startup ideas sprouting every day, the region had all the ingredients for an innovation-driven economy. But local business leaders didn’t understand why it wasn’t doing more with what it had.

Since then, the private sector and government officials have come together to form a structured road map for how to direct the Roanoke-Blacksburg region to the main stage of the technology scene.

So far most of the work has been on building the “infrastructure” for the ecosystem. The group worked on building community support and created an “Innovation Blueprint” in 2012.

Now, leaders behind the effort say they’re ready to begin the next chapter. Planning is over; they’re ready to deliver with the money they have raised from the community.

“We do have world-class assets,” Eddie Amos, chief technology officer for the Roanoke-based tech company Meridium, has said. “When I graduated from VPI a long time ago, [the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center] was 1,000 acres, a lot of cows and a fraternity house. Now it’s 20-something buildings, 250 companies. It’s a world-renowned research center. That’s the type of thing that is going on right now.

“‘Wow.’ That’s all you can say when you step back and think about what it is today and all the possibilities looks like tomorrow.”