Thursday, January 11, 2007 Older Editions

Finding their place in the world

By April Guilmet

A seventh-grader from West Middle School might be among 100 Bay State students competing in the statewide competition for the 19th annual National Geographic Bee this March.

On Tuesday, John Scarborough won the school's competition of the Geographic Bee, which is sponsored by the National Geographic Society. He'll take an exam this Friday to determine whether he'll go on to compete for the state competition.

Sixth-grader Samantha Beati came in second place, while eighth-grader Kevin McCartney came in third. Other finalists in this week's bee were Jason Andresen, Emily Field, Henry Chuang, David Stein, Greg Howard, Tom Cooper and Tom Dempsey.

Walter Rossini, who teaches sixth grade at the school, spoke to the 10 nervous finalists before the rousing competition began.

"Remember, at the end of each round, a second mistake is cause for elimination," Rossini said. He encouraged the parents and peers in the audience to save their applause until the end of each round.

Fellow teacher Michelle Baer read students their questions, which began with multiple choice questions identifying states and continued on to continents, cultural geography and map comprehension.

By the final round, only John, Samantha and Kevin remained on the stage.

In the end, John won by answering the question: "The Bab el Mandeb, a straight between the Arabian Peninsula and Africa, connects the Gulf of Aden to which body of water?"

"It's the Red Sea," said John.

According to Rossini, 27 students came to his classroom last week, all hoping to get a shot at competing in the bee. It was a tough competition. "They had the best scores I've seen in many years," Rossini said.

Admittedly, though, last year's winner is a tough act to follow.

Krishnan Chandra won the West Middle School's Geography Bee for all three years he attended the school. Chandra, now a freshman at Phillips Academy, went on to win the Massachusetts State Bee all three of those years, traveling to Washington, D.C. for the national competition.

Krishnan came in fifth place in the entire country during his final trip to Washington.