State geography bee winner keeps family tradition going

Dennis Punzel:

Asha Jain will be making her fourth trip to the National Geographic Bee in Washington, D.C., in May. This time she's going as a participant, rather than a spectator.

Asha, a 12-year-old seventh-grader from Minocqua-Hazelhurst-Lake Tomahawk Elementary School in Minocqua, won the Wisconsin National Geographic Bee competition held Friday at the American Family Insurance national headquarters in Madison by correctly answering all 27 questions she faced.

In doing so she follows in the footsteps of her brother Vansh, who had won three of the previous four state bees and placed second last year in the national bee. Vansh also won the state bee in 2009 and 2010 and went on to place fourth and sixth, respectively, at the national bee.

"We like geography," Vansh said of his family dynasty. "I'm happy and proud of her. She always lost to me before, so I wanted her to win."

After being blocked by her big brother the past three years -- only one contestant from each school can make it to the state level -- Asha was determined to make the most of her opportunity.

"We study a lot," said Asha, whose family has a world map mural on its living room wall. "We look at a lot of maps and go through the notes over and over."

All that work paid off as Asha was the only girl to advance to the finals along with nine boys.

One by one, the boys were eliminated as Asha was the only contestant to answer each question correctly through 14 rounds. That brought her to the championship round against Andrew Tai, a seventh-grader from Templeton Middle School in Sussex.

They each answered the three championship-round questions and the first of the tie-breaker round.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at April 9, 2013 1:28 AM
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