Myers improves standing at Geography Bee

TOM PINNEY/DAILY FORUM
Maryville Middle School eighth grade student Alex Myers poses with globes before heading to the State Geography Bee in early April. Myers improved on last year’s performance at the competition, placing in the top 20 when all was said and done.

Alex Myers knows a lot about geography.

At the 2017 State Geography Bee, hosted by National Geographic at the University of Missouri at Columbia, Myers advanced out of preliminary rounds and placed in the top 20 in the state.

It was Myers’ second trip to the State Geography Bee, which he said was a great feeling.

“Last year, I didn’t even advance past the preliminary rounds,” Myers said. “It felt great to advance and land where I did.

“I was nervous at first, but when I learned that I was going to the tiebreaker rounds, it felt awesome.”

The preliminary rounds take place in a test format, and the students with the most answers correct – 20 overall – advance to what are called tiebreaker rounds. In the tiebreaker, students are asked one question at a time and slowly whittled away until the top 10 are left standing.

The championship round is formatted much like a spelling bee, in that students come up one at a time and are asked to answer geography questions. This continues until they have a champion, who then qualifies for the national bee.

This year’s qualifier from Missouri is Columbia’s Rohan K. Rao, a seventh grader at Ann Hawkins Gentry Middle School.

Myers said his preparation for the state bee was extensive.

“The questions were picked from US geography and world geography,” Myers said. “I spent an hour a night trying to get the facts into my head to make sure I could bring them up whenever I needed to.

“I would also do some geography quizzes online. It was a lot of study.”

In many ways, however, advisor and eighth grade social studies teacher Bryan Grow said Myers was particularly talented when it comes to geography. “

“There were some exceptionally hard questions thrown in there, but Alex was up to the challenge,” Grow said. “He went above and beyond the average expectations of classwork to take on something particularly difficult and really excel at it.

“We constantly talk about kids finding their genius here at Maryville Middle School, and for Myers, his genius is geography.”