Academic Ambassador Award
R. Robert Hentzel
National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC
Bloomington, MN
Mr. Hentzel, a founding member and longtime president of NAQT, is recognized specifically “for his dedication to popularizing pyramidal questions in high school quizbowl in new regions around the United States.” The success of Mr. Hentzel’s efforts can be seen in the popularity of the HSNCT, which in recent years has ballooned to include 192 teams, many of them from states in which pyramidal quizbowl was unknown just a few years ago. It is too easy to forget that the many hours Mr. Hentzel puts into organizing NAQT are essentially volunteer work. By awarding him the Cooper Award, PACE honors his sustained dedication to the game of quizbowl.
Young Ambassador Award
Sarah Angelo
Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School for Government and International Studies
Richmond, VA
Sarah, currently a senior at Maggie Walker Governor’s School in Richmond, Virginia, is recognized “for her outstanding and dedicated work as a tournament director and editor, which has expanded and enhanced the independent quizbowl circuit throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.” In the past two years alone, Sarah has been the tournament director of an impressive array of tournaments at Maggie Walker, including GSAC XVI, HAVOC II, a Fall Novice Tournament mirror, GSAC XVII, and an MUT mirror. One PACE member, when discussing the Cooper Award nominees, summed up succinctly Sarah’s work on behalf of quizbowl at such a young age, calling it “impressive as hell.”