Pemberville: Eighth-grader 'just misses' in bee

4/6/2005

The eighth grader who has been the only Eastwood Middle School student to qualify for the state geography bee - which he has done two years in a row - said he just missed making it past the first round.

Kyle Henry said he correctly answered six of the eight questions in the state's preliminary round held on April 1, but said there were three people who answered seven questions right, necessitating a tie-breaker between those three for the next round.

Kyle, 14, said he got stuck on a question dealing with the Korean Peninsula, and one about Argentina.

After he won his school's geography bee in January, Kyle passed the qualifying test to advance to the state level, which was held in Mansfield, Ohio, April 1.

Nirbhay Jain of Ottawa Hills Elementary School, one of 13 students from northwest Ohio competing at the state level, will represent the state at the national competition in Washington May 24-25. The winner gets a $25,000 college scholarship.

The geography bee is a program of the National Geographic Society designed to encourage teaching and studying geography.