Math Contest

As a student, one of the highlights of my junior high experience, was competing in math contests. Okay, I realize I could be a bit nerdy in admitting this… However, there was something about traveling to another place and sitting in a room with 100 or so other like-minded students. There was a feeling that math was interesting, that being interested in it was okay. Now, the teams I was on in junior high always got soundly trounced at these competitions, but usually that was beside the point. We answered the questions that we could, we realized there was a lot, many times a whole lot more to learn. And we had fun. We usually got treated to lunch someplace nice and the experience of feeling special. All very cool things whether you grow up in Belmont, NC or Bundibugyo, Uganda. Needless to say, we were delighted to send several members of our math club to compete, for the first time ever, in a national math competition. Four of our students qualified for the final round, to be held six hours away in the town of Mbarara. We were so proud that one of our MKs, Luke Myhre, was among the students selected to go. His father (also our team leader) volunteered to drive the group, so the boys along with their teacher piled in the car and off they went. The road from Bundibugyo to Mbarara is beautiful and passes through one of the major game parks in our country. On the way through, they even saw a small herd of elephants just off the road. The photo at the top is a group snap taken at a nearby resort overlooking the Savannah of this same game park. What a wonderful experience. We'll get the results of the competition in the next month, but regardless, we are as proud of these boys as we can be.