The 2013 Middle
Georgia chapter MATHCOUNTS competition was today at Mercer University in
Macon. The Middle Georgia chapter of the
Georgia Society of Professional Engineers (GSPE) hosted the event. Fifty students from nine public and private middle
schools in Middle Georgia participated.
I’m very pleased to report that we had a fun and smooth competition!
The MATHCOUNTS
competition would not be possible without all of the wonderful volunteers. Many of my fellow GSPE members have been
working with me for years, and it’s such a load off my mind that they are so reliable
and know exactly what to do. In addition
to us GSPE members, we also received super volunteer support from Mercer
students and faculty. Thank you to all
of you for promoting mathematical excellence among our Middle Georgia young
people!
The mathletes
completed three rounds of competition in the morning, two as individuals and
one as teams. After lunch, we reconvened
for the Countdown Round. The Countdown
Round, which includes the top 10 mathletes from the morning session, is a
fast-paced, oral competition with electronic buzzers. Frank Malloy, the news anchor from WMAZ TV in
Macon, served as the Countdown Round emcee, which he graciously has done for
many years. The Countdown Round is open
to the public. The problems are
projected on a screen that everyone can see.
It’s fun to try to solve each problem yourself; can you figure it out
before the Countdown Round competitors buzz in?
The top two teams
were Stratford Academy (1st place) and Mount de Sales Academy (2nd
place). The members of those two teams,
along with the top eight individuals not on those two teams, will advance to
the state competition, to be held on March 18, 2013 at Georgia Tech. Congratulations to the winners, and thank you
to every student and coach who participated!
By the way, we
provide a T-shirt to each mathlete, coach, and volunteer. As the primary T-shirt designer, I’m always
on the lookout for design material. I
tend to favor math jokes and puns, which are pretty easy to find on the
Internet. I think we’ve had some pretty
good T-shirts, but this year’s may be the best:
T-shirt front
T-shirt back
As the chapter
coordinator, I always breathe a huge sigh of relief when we complete another
competition successfully. It seems like
something weird always happens, even if it’s just a small glitch. For example, today the auditorium where the
competition was to be held was locked. I
had to call the Mercer police to unlock the doors for me. The main thing is, DON’T PANIC:
A locked auditorium
is nothing compared to some of the trickier situations that I’ve faced over the
15 years that I’ve been volunteering for MATHCOUNTS. A few years ago, an ice storm hit the night
before the scheduled chapter competition.
I had to send a lot of e-mails and make a lot of phone calls to let all
of the coaches know that we had to postpone the competition. Fortunately, the venue was available the
following week, and we were able to reschedule with minimal problems.
The most memorable MATHCOUNTS
situation I faced, however, was as the state coordinator in 2008. The state competition is always held in
Atlanta in March. Well, that’s the year that
the tornado hit downtown Atlanta. One of
our major state MATHCOUNTS sponsors was Shell Oil, who flew in a representative
from Houston. She was staying at the
Peachtree Plaza, which suffered major window damage when the tornado hit on
Friday night. I’m sure that’s a trip
that she won’t soon forget!
I had come up to
Atlanta myself that Friday night, planning to spend the night with my mother
before the competition at Zoo Atlanta the next day. Additionally, I combined volunteer
activities, bringing my greyhounds for a special meet & greet at the World Congress
Center on Friday evening. (My mother
kept the greyhounds for me while I was at MATHCOUNTS the next day.) The hounds and I left the World Congress
Center at the end of the meet & greet, only 45 minutes before the tornado
hit that building, too!
Tornadic systems
moved through the area all through the night and the next day. I was ready to leave my mother’s house at
about 6:30 on Saturday morning. She
asked, “Shouldn’t you call someone in charge to see if the competition is still
going on?” “Uh, Mother, I am
the person in charge!” I replied with a laugh.
At the very least, I needed to go to the zoo to assess the
situation. Fortunately, we were able to
continue as planned. Just barely,
though. We were almost finished with the
awards ceremony on Saturday afternoon when there was another tornado
warning. Zoo officials made as leave
ASAP.
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