Written by: Seth Gordon, Newberg Graphic 

Middle school students Alexa Jones and Tyler Bellemare will advance

After it had fallen by the wayside over the past three years, language arts and social studies teacher Andrew Gallagher decided to revive the National Geographic Bee at Mountain View Middle School this year.

Eighth grade student Alexa Jones is probably happier than anyone that he did after she both won the schoolwide competition and scored high enough on an online test to qualify for Friday's Oregon State Bee at Western Oregon University.

"I guess it's one of my newfound passions," Jones said. "It's really fun, actually, because you get adrenaline when you're answering a question, you get really nervous. Once you get it right, you feel really good."

Jones will be one of two Newberg students among the field of 100 competitors, as fourth grade student Tyler Bellemare won the competition at Mabel Rush Elementary School and also passed muster on the online test.

"It was my experience that the kids liked it," Gallagher said of reviving the program at MVMS. "They like it when you involve a little bit of competition in education and learning. I think there's a benefit of involving a little bit of competition with learning, but a healthy amount, not too much."

Jones did not have any expectations when Gallagher began asking each student in his social studies class one oral question per day for seven days to determine a class champion. The competition is structured that way so that it doesn't take up more than 10 or 15 minutes of class time and allowed all of the approximately 550 students at MVMS to participate.

"At first, I didn't think it was going to go anywhere," Jones said. "I started getting every question right and I started to think maybe I'm good at this."

Jones and the other classroom winners advanced to a tournament in December that whittled down the field to her and seventh grade student Sander Smith.

Because of a snow day on the last day before winter break, the finals were delayed until early January, with Jones claiming first place after correctly identifying New York as the state that borders Niagara Falls (although the fact that she could not identify Missouri as the state in which the Lake of the Ozarks is located may prove to be a longer lasting memory).

Encouraged by staff, Jones began studying for the online test that state bee organizers use to trim the contestant pool down to a manageable number. Gallagher was informed Feb. 28 that Jones had met the qualifying threshold and, along with Bellemare, will now have the chance to advance to the National Geographic Bee Championship May 11-14 at National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D.C.

To win, the Newberg students will have to navigate eight preliminary rounds Friday, after which the top 10 finishers will advance to the final round. That round will produce two finalists for the championship round, with the winner advancing to nationals.

"I would be so excited and so proud of myself," Jones said of possibly winning on Friday. "I would just be so happy."