Students from Kay Larson’s financial management class at Symmes Valley High School had the chance to prove what they knew at the LifeSmarts statewide competition in Columbus on Monday.

This is the second year of the competition and the first year for Symmes Valley to participate. They completed monthly online questions to earn the right to advance to the statewide level. Only nine teams were eligible across the state, and out of those nine, seven traveled to Columbus for the LifeSmarts challenge.

Monday’s competition was set up quiz-bowl style, like a game show. LifeSmarts is a program put on by the National Consumers League and is open to sixth to 12th grade students, with four to five students representing the school.

The Symmes Valley team, led by captain Sarah Redding, along with Bianca Bartram, Erica Johnson, Nicholas Simpkins and Lane Wilson, and under the supervision of Larson, answered questions in areas of personal finance, health, safety, the environment, technology and consumer rights and responsibilities.

“Of the hardest questions they asked, some of them I didn’t know,” Larson said. “Some were multiple choice, some open-ended. They had to buzz in and answer. I’m really proud of them.”

The competition was a double-elimination process, and Symmes Valley was in first place during the morning competition, where they beat out three other teams. The six teams who lost had to compete with each other, and the winner of that team went up against Symmes Valley and beat them for the last two rounds.

“I think they did great,” Larson said. “They came in second place in the state, which I think was good.”

The team from Bellefontaine won first place and will go on to compete in the national competition in California.

Larson is especially proud of how the Symmes Valley team fared, considering they aren’t currently taking the finance class.

“Financial management class was in the fall,” she said. “I don’t have kids studying that right now.

“They did great.”