Sylvania boy places in state Geographic Bee

4/13/2011
BLADE STAFF
Poom Pipatjarasgit, a Sylvania resident and 6th grader at Maumee Valley County Day School came in 4th place at the Ohio Geography Bee Competition on April 1st held on the Ohio State University campus in Mansfield, Ohio.
Poom Pipatjarasgit, a Sylvania resident and 6th grader at Maumee Valley County Day School came in 4th place at the Ohio Geography Bee Competition on April 1st held on the Ohio State University campus in Mansfield, Ohio.

A Maumee Valley Country Day School sixth grader from Sylvania placed fourth in the recent state semifinals of the National Geographic Bee.

Poom Pipatjarasgit was one of 10 finalists in the Ohio competition April 1 at the Ohio State University branch campus in Mansfield, and he was the youngest to finish in the top five.

Only the winner advanced to national competition next month in Washington.

To qualify for the state event, Poom won the geography bee at his school, then took a qualifying exam from which students with the 100 highest scores were selected.

At Mansfield, competitors were divided into groups of 20 to compete for two state finalist spots from each group.

The National Geographic Bee is sponsored by the National Geographic Society, Google Inc., and Plum Creek, a major forest-products company.

National Geographic developed the National Geographic Bee in 1989 in response to concern about the lack of geographic knowledge among young people in the United States.