For those of you Vocabulary Bowl fans who like a good underdog story, the October results offered just that.
It was a major month for middle schools, with five of the top ten slots going to these young upstarts who competed side-by-side with high schools for the most overall words mastered.
In the end, it was the Mighty Purple Pups of Lanier Middle School in Houston who prevailed as top dog in the first month of the official 2016 - 2017 Season. Lanier's students dominated the nationwide pack, coming in at number one with 48,165 words mastered.
If you're familiar with Lanier's impressive Vocabulary Bowl achievements from the past few seasons, you might be wondering what makes this an underdog story. After all, they've been recognized as one of the top word-learning schools to beat in the last two seasons.
Consider this: Lanier Middle School, which serves grades 6-8, held their own against high schools which serve students through grade 12. Lanier's enrollment is just under 1400 students, which is about half the size of some of the other fantastic schools that ranked in the Vocabulary Bowl top ten for October. Those numbers, plus Lanier's insurmountable 6,000-word lead put these Might Purple Pups heads - and tails - above the rest.
