WCMS students have a head for figures
Students from across the county descended on Eastside Elementary last week for a first-ever countywide math competition. Capturing first place in both the fifth- and sixth-grade, and seventh- and eighth-grade divisions was Warren County Middle School.
Competition organizer and Eastside math teacher Kim Cantrell said the inspiration for the math competition came after years of watching science fairs.
“I always thought some kind of math fair would be fun, so (fellow math teacher) Linda Collier and I came up with the idea of a math competition in which we’d invite all county schools to participate,” she said.
The competition, which organizers plan on making an annual event, featured teams from Dibrell Elementary, Centertown Elementary, Eastside Elementary and the middle school.
The contest had all team members take a test which quizzed each student’s ability on a wide range of mathematical areas, including pre-algebra, algebra and geometry. Team scores were determined by adding the top four scores from each five-person team.
As noted above, the middle school’s teams captured first place in both grade divisions, a fact which pleased team co-coach Chris Madewell.
“I’m very proud of their performance,” he said.
Two of the fifth- and sixth-grade competition’s top individual scorers, David Maddux and Cydney Bodenhamer, also hail from the middle school. Taking third in individual scoring was Centertown’s Brian Wilson. All of the seventh- and eighth-grade individual high scorers, Hao Shi, Nathan Stanford and Drew Stewart, are middle school students.
Eastside principal Michael Trevathan said he was pleased with the competition and hopes to see it and similar competitions become popular.
“We have a lot of athletic competition, and that’s good, but we need academic competition, too,” he said.