NEWBURY PARK HIGH SCHOOL CAPTURES FIRST PLACE
AT 2005 “GEO CHALLENGE” HELD NOVEMBER 19
OXNARD, Californiam, Nov. 19, 2005—It took only a single “Round Robin” lightning round question answered correctly for the all-male Newbury Park High School—Team 1 to capture the top prize at the “GEO BOWL CHALLENGE 2005” competition held Saturday, Nov. 19, at Oxnard College.
The competition could have gone either way for Newbury Park High and second-place finisher Santa Paula High School—Team 1, since both answered 14 questions correctly out of 20 questions in the final lightning round. It took the 21st question to finally decide the winner. That left Newbury Park High team the top winner with15 questions correct in only their second year competing in the Geography Bowl challenge. (Last year the team took home a third-place award.)
(The Winning Question – “After the Dec. 26 tsunami of last year both the Tamils and the Senalese put aside their differences to help their country after thousands died. In which country do these two warring factions live?” Answer: “Sri Lanka”.)
Claiming third-place was last year’s top winning team, Rio Mesa High School-Team 1. The fourth place finisher was St. Bonaventure-Team 1 and fifth place went to the High School at Moorpark College-Team 1.
The Newbury Park High School-Team 1 included Trevor Wineman, Landon Wurot, Owen Lloyd, Cody Herrick, Colin Dwyer and Taylor Broughton and advisor Nick Colangelo.
Team members – who admitted they hadn’t even studied too hard for the competition in order to stay “loose” -- will be able to soar over the local coastline and the Conejo Valley hills, piloted by competition judge Jim McCrory of Aspen Helicopters of Oxnard. They will also get to showcase the Geo Bowl perpetual trophy at their school until next year’s competition on Saturday, Nov. 18, 2006.
Members of the second place Santa Paula High School Team included Ricky Alamillo, Johnnathan Alvarado, Kevin Barnett, Vanessa Zurita, Daniel Kim and Kristin Mauricio with advisor Janet Borchert. Members of the third place Rio Mesa High School- Team 1 included Bryce Newman, Gregory Ball, Arturo Casillas, Alejandro Jara, David Ilata and William Meyer with advisor Ben Todd. - more - GEO 2005 Committee chair Chris Mainzer and McCrory said that after the Round Robin competition was one of the quickest on record.
“But it was pretty exciting to get that tie and have the entire challenge come down to a single question,” said Mainzer, a geography instructor at Oxnard College.
While many of the questions reflected current events like the continuing global conflicts in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Afghanistan, this year’s theme for the annual event was “Migrations: The Human Journey.”
Worldwide weather phenomenon, world geography and history and even global conflicts are a recurring theme in each year’s competition and some of the final Round Robin tiebreaker question reflected such concerns: “Darfour is a province in what country where horrific ethnic cleansing is occurring?”
The answer: Sudan.
It was a question that most of the competing teams answered correctly.
About 180 students from twelve county public and private high schools started the day off by competing in the individual written competition, which challenged students’ knowledge of global issues on geography and the environment.
The individual student winners in the Writing Competition included Bryce Newman of Rio Mesa High School (first place), followed by Jeff Klein, who attends the High School at Moorpark College (second place); Nathan Valley of St. Bonaventure High School (third place); Ricky Alamillo of Santa Paula High (fourth place); and fifth place went to Molly Li of the Newbury Park High School-Team 2.
This year the American Petroleum Institute donated $1,000 in cash prizes to all five winners of the written competition, said Mainzer. The prizes of $400 for first place, $300 for second place and $100 each to third, fourth and fifth places will go to the schools where the students attend to help pay for supplies for geography classes.
Sponsors and supporters of the 17th annual “Geo Challenge 2005” included Aspen Helicopters, the O.C. Academic Senate, the O.C. Classified Senate, the O.C. Associated Student Government, David Fowble of Trophies, Etc., Diane Flynn, the Geography Department of CSUN, the OC Bookstore and publishers Nystrom and Rand McNally. Nystrom, in particular, has pledged a set of new atlases to each of the top three winning schools in the competition.
# |
