Elm Grove Elementary School held its first-ever Geography Bee recently, with seven campus fifth-graders vying for the right to compete for the state meet. The Eagles’ 1-2-3 placers included (left to right) champ Carter Dodson, second place winner Cade Isbell, and third place winner Ashley Morrow. Dodson will take a written qualifying test for a berth at the state meet. (Photos by Jim Cullen)
The Buda Elementary School Geography Bee’s top three placers showed what they knew about the world in a competition held recently in the Kunkel Room. The Bulldog placers included (left to right) first place winner Rocky Perez, third place winner Jacob Medel, and second place winner Matt Jass. Perez earned the right to compete for a berth in the state meet.
by JIM CULLEN
Only the brave dare tread where National Geographic creates the questions. That’s a fair assessment following the running of a pair of National Geography Bee fairs at Buda Elementary School and Elm Grove Elementary School. Adult witnesses to each could attest, “Those questions were tough!” Nonetheless, ten Buda Bulldogs and seven Elm Grove Eagles put themselves to the public test and two of their number have advanced to the next level of competition.
The Bulldogs’ Rocky Perez and the Eagles’ Carter Dodson, both fifth-graders, won their respective campus bees and have earned the right to take the paper test that will be submitted to state contest officials and perhaps earn the boys a berth in the Texas state meet later this year.
It wasn’t easy.
Question by question, both Perez and Dodson successfully sparred with their peers to pull off the wins. At Buda, fifth-grader Matt Jass was second and fourth-grader Jacob Medel took third. At Elm Grove, where the bee was played off on a cold night before an enthusiastic and encouraging group of parents, fifth-graders Cade Isbell and Ashley Morrow were second and third, respectively.
The full group of undaunted Buda Bulldogs earning the right to compete in the school bee also included fourth-graders Maxie Pyterek and Alicia Rios and fifth-graders Gavin Campos, Sam Grumbles, Lauren Flores, Drew Cooper and Joel Leal. At Elm Grove, the balance of the competitors, all fifth-graders, included Alexander Laskey, Hadley Dove, James Wallace and Isaiah Smith.
The sponsoring organization for the competition, the National Geographic Society, notes that each year “thousands of schools in the United States participate in the National Geographic Bee.” The contest is designed “to encourage teachers to include geography in their classrooms, spark student interest in the subject, and increase public awareness about geography.”
