Bob Jones had two teams of economic students compete in The Alabama Economics Challenge 2021. One of the Bob Jones teams was The David Ricardo Division champion. The students that competed on the winning team were: Emma Bordelon, Julia Pimmel, and Liam Kilpatrick. The other Bob Jones team, which won 2nd place in the EconChallenge, consisted of: David Reynolds, Brandon Clark, Quin Goins, and Ethan Gann. Since Bob Jones placed in the competition, the winning team earned prize money, which they split among the members- it ended up being about $100 awarded per person.

This competition tested students on their economic knowledge with an online test. Bob Jones competed against other local schools in Alabama but ended up winning both 1st and 2nd place in the competition, becoming the David Ricardo Division Champion. Grissom High School in Huntsville won the title of the Adam Smith Division Champion in The Alabama Economics Challenge 2021. The 2021 State Championship was canceled, and champions for this year are determined by online competition. The winners for the EconChallenge were announced on April 26, 2021.

The students were all in one of Ms. Springer’s spring semester Economics classes this year. The teams used what they learned in class to help them succeed in the competition, but then they also reviewed the material with Ms. Springer before the competition. Julia Pimmel, a senior, said that the team “studied with Ms. Springer for a couple of days to refresh what [they] learned in the class since it was last 9 weeks.” Julia also said that, for that test, they “got a pretty big packet with similar questions” as study material. 

Senior Emma Bordelon said that the competition was “basically like a second econ final.” After their success in the competition, the Bob Jones team got to compete in another round of the competition on May 10. Julia Pimmel also said that for the second part of the competition they did not prepare as much, and that “the questions were a lot harder and there was stuff we hadn’t even learned about in class.”