St. Anthony School students compete at geography bee

WINSTED — St. Anthony School held its annual geography bee on Friday, Jan. 23.During the event, 10 students from grades five through eight sat on stage facing an audience composed of their classmates and family members.One by one, students approached the microphone to answer geography-themed questions posed to them by event organizer and geography teacher Scott Norton.Norton said that in order to compete in the geography bee, the students must first compete and win preliminary rounds in their classrooms.“They’re asked similar questions to this in their classroom,” Norton said. “It’s like a spelling bee, except it’s all about geography. The fun thing about this is getting to see the kids puzzle out the questions. The questions usually have a clue in them, and they’ll give a hint as to where the answer could come from. If they listen to the question, they can take something out of it to help find the answer, and it’s fun watching them do that.”The students were asked questions such as: “The Red River forms a border between Oklahoma and which state?” and “The Great Lakes’ main outlet to a sea is through which river?”The winner of the geography bee was eighth-grader Stephanie Nonamaker. Seventh-grader Beth Christensen came in second, and seventh-grader Nate Lauzon placed third.“Stephanie will now have to take a written test, which every school champion takes,” Norton said. “It will be graded and judged against the rest of the competitors in the state. The top 100 finishers will go and compete in the state’s geography bee, which is similar to this but held at Central Connecticut State University. The winner of that will represent the state in the National Geography Bee.”Every student who participated in the geography bee received a pen, and the top three finishers received gift certificates to Dairy Queen and Barnes & Noble. Stephanie was awarded a first-place school champion medal in addition to the gift certificates.She said that this was her first time competing in a geography bee and that it was fun.“I wasn’t really nervous, because I’m kind of used to being on stage,” Stephanie said. “I’m in the drama club and I’ve done concerts and things like that. I love geography. I like to learn about other cultures. I studied a bit for the geography bee, but they don’t really tell you what to study. I was always interested in maps as a child, but last year I realized that I enjoyed studying that type of stuff and wanted to look into it more.”Stephanie’s father, Jeremiah Nonamaker, said that his daughter has been consistently strong in geography.“We always have contests where we go back and forth and test each other’s geography expertise,” Nonamaker said. “Neither one of us are experts, but we have fun with it. She seems to like history too.”