Jefferson geography whiz puts state on map

Leah Nylen:

Need to know the capital of Estonia or the highest mountain in Tajikistan?

Just ask Bjorn Ager-Hart, a 14-year-old home-schooled student from Jefferson who represented Wisconsin on Tuesday at the National Geographic Bee. Sponsored by National Geographic, the bee brings together 55 middle school students from all the states and U.S. territories to compete for a $25,000 college scholarship.

For the past three years, Bjorn has spent hours -- about five each week -- poring over geography books to learn enough to make it to the national competition.

"I like geography," Bjorn said. "You get to learn about a lot of different places in the world."

He first learned of the contest in 2004. Since then, he has made the state championships every year, but only this year attained his goal to advance to the national contest. In sixth grade, Bjorn got two questions wrong and last year lost during the tie-breaker round. But on March 30 this year, he got a perfect score during the competition and won a trip to Washington for him and his family.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 24, 2007 12:01 AM
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