JEFFERSON TWP — After making it to the final round of KDKA’s Hometown High Q, the Knoch High School team has won $6,000 that it donated to the school.

The team members are just-graduated senior Nathaniel Pettit, and three juniors who will be seniors in the fall: Will Morgus, Nick Ripper and Jacob Love.

The final round of the show will be aired at 11 a.m. Saturday on KDKA, Channel 2.

On Wednesday night at the South Butler School Board meeting, Pettit said the top nine schools receive prize money. The Knoch team will divide its money three ways.

Pettit said the team decided as a group what to do with the prize money.

“(Our choices) reflect things that are important to the student body as a whole,” Pettit said.

Ripper said $1,000 will be donated to the student newspaper.

“We plan to fund the student newspaper,” he said. “It appears that (the newspaper) is running very low on funds, and we believe that all of its publications are highly anticipated and enjoyed by the student body.”

Another $1,000 will be given to the microphone fund to help with the district’s dramatic productions and events, Love said.

“The musical, fall and spring plays are events that draw high participation from the student body and represent, in many ways, the best of Knoch High School,” he said, stressing that the donation will help students for years to come.

Also, $4,000 will go to high school history teacher Brad Pflugh, who teaches AP European History, according to Morgus.

He said Pflugh’s books are about 15 years old and are not meeting the needs of the AP class. The $4,000 is the cost to replace the textbooks and buy enough online subscriptions for the books for two years.

Morgus said the history class is quite popular, even though it is not a required class and draws in about 80 students each year.

“Mr. Pflugh is an awesome guy, and it’s an awesome class,” Morgus said. “We thought this would be a great way to enhance the quality of education at the school and keep it to the standard that it’s been set at.”

The students competed against 80 other teams in the Pittsburgh region, Pettit said. He also said that the team making it to the final round this year is “proof that public education does work.”

Pettit will attend Brown University, planning to study international relations and history.