More than 4,000 high school students test their knowledge of global issues and foreign policies each year as they compete in the WorldQuest Competition at Webster University. During the 15th annual competition, four Liberty students represented the Wentzville School District.

Seniors Muhammad Alasgarli, Cameron Dierks, Adrian Przezdziecki and Nicholas Raphael competed in seven rounds of 10 questions each and finished ninth out of 29 schools earning the name of Rookie of the Year.

Alasgarli organized his group by choosing the other three as the students he thought were best qualified.

“We went in kind of prepared, kind of knowing what was going to happen, and so when we were announced that we won we were pretty proud because there were a lot of other schools that are also rookies,” Przezdziecki said.

They were sent a confirmation email with resources to study only a month before the competition. They didn’t have a teacher sponsor, and took things into their own hands.

“We stayed after school and we went over some articles that they sent us and some practice questions from past years,” Przezdziecki said.

The majority of the questions were big world news events and happenings that have happened within the past year.

“It’s always great to see kids show interest in these issues as they will be the future leaders responsible for addressing them,” Elizabeth Hatfield, Director of Programs and Administration  of WorldQuest said.

In the end, the group studied, practiced and worked hard for their first year at the WorldQuest Competition and were proud of how they finished.