Echenique wins school Geography Bee, heads to state championship

Lucas+Echinique

Lucas Echinique

By TIRZAH BRYANT, staff writer

The winner of this year’s Galena Geography Bee is Lucas Echenique.

Lucas will receive his first place award at the next school board meeting and will soon take a test on a computer to qualify for the state geography bee where he will represent the Galena City School District in Anchorage.

There was a very long tiebreaker for second place between Larry Wholecheese and Sophia Shumacher. In the end, Sophia was able to pull ahead and take second place.

The Geography Bee took place on Monday, January 16, at 6:30 p.m. in the SHS elementary gym.

Once every year, elementary students in Geography Club participate in the Geography Bee, sponsored by National Geographic. The Geography Bee is sponsored by elementary teacher Debbie Koontz and consists of questions sent by National Geographic.

Tim Bodony, the news director at Galena radio station KIYU, read the questions to the students.

The Geography Club students are Larry Wholecheese, Milo and Paul Huntington, Vaughn Landrum, Finn Hornfischer, Lucas and Maite Echenique, Jed Ruchti, Sophia Shumacher, and Grace Boyers.

The judges were Erin Knight, high school language arts teacher at the GILA campus, and Liz Shababerle, science teacher at the SHS campus.