CAMDEN — Twin Valley South’s fourth and fifth grade team as well as Eaton Middle School’s sixth-eighth grade team were declared the winners of the annual Preble County Geography Bee, held Thursday, April 15, at Preble Shawnee.
This year’s event was much different than the Geography Bees held in the past. Students participated on teams of four, and each district fielded two teams: one for grades 4-5 and one for grades 6-8. This is a change from past bees, where students competed as individuals.
Preble Shawnee’s fourth and fifth grade team and Tri-County North’s sixth-eighth grade team took home second place honors in the competition.
Fourth and fifth grade students participating on their schools’ teams included: Katy Clopper, Paityn Cross, Cohen Emig and Bronson Garber for TVS; Kennedy Cornell, Emma Hatton, Abigail Myers and Oliver Quenette for Preble Shawnee; Gabe Corder, Carter Mathews, Carsen Nable and Mackenzie Woodrey for TCN; Sawyer Keating, Lauren McKee, Landen Schaeff and Annabelle Smith for Eaton Middle School and Grady Thomas, Alton Sparks, Christian Rutan and Kenaday Thompson for National Trail.
Sixth-eighth graders participating on their schools’ teams included:Elijah Mihalus, Evelyn Cole, Gavin Winings and Michael Fomin for Eaton Middle School; Kasidi Daugherty, Rylie Myers, Parker McGrath and Carley Landis for TCN; Kyle Laird, Grant Deaton, Adain Koehl and James Morgan for National Trail; Logan Mitchell, Ethan Fields, John Nestor and Ronnie Koehlblin for Preble Shawnee and Samuel DeHart, Rhett Emig, Audrey Fox and Eshton Justice for TVS.
Preble County Educational Service Center Assistant Superintendent Shawn Hoff and Enrichment Coordinator Tyler Baker welcomed everyone to the event and explained how the evening would proceed.
The teams competed in separate locations, with the fourth and fifth grade teams in the school’s cafeteria while the sixth-eighth graders competed in the auditorium. The teams for grades 4-5 dealt with topics including geographic land structures; map legends, keys, lines and markings; states and state capitals; United States’ geography; European countries and their location and flag identification. The grades 6-8 teams competed on topics including West Asia topography; European countries; location of Asian countries; European topography and United States geography.
According to organizers, each team had roughly 10 seconds to “collaborate, answer the displayed question and show their answer.” Answers were then written on a white board for the judges. Each team answered approximately 33 multiple choice questions based on Ohio Department of Education standards for their respective grade-levels. Questions were displayed via a projector onto a screen for both students and the audience to see. Only the questions were displayed. The correct answers were on a sheet of paper located at the judges’ tables.
The final round was an extra credit map quiz for both age groups.
The winning teams received a 30-inch tall traveling trophy with perpetual name plate which have the winning schools’ names engraved. The winning teams’ school can display the trophy as long as its team remains champions. The second place teams also received smaller traveling trophies.
Team coordinators included John Raymond (fourth-fifth) and Becky Wells (sixth-eighth) for Eaton; Dori Harrison (fourth-fifth) and Janet Ott (sixth-eighth) for National Trail; Amanda Rike (fourth-fifth) and Stefanie Hurley (sixth-eighth) for Preble Shawnee; Lisa Filbrun (fourth-fifth) and Tyler Jewell (sixth-eighth) for Tri-County North and Amy Mary (fourth-fifth) and Caleb Walker (sixth-eighth) for Twin Valley South.
Judges for the evening were Jaimie Biermann and Vicky Gibson.
