Martin tops Battle of Books
Published: Wed, Mar. 08, 2006 12:30AM
Modified Wed, Mar. 08, 2006 03:10AM
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closeSaturday was a busy day for some of Wake County's brightest students to show off their academic skills.
On Saturday, Martin Middle School captured the school district's 25th annual Battle of the Books competition at Southeast Raleigh High School. Students at the Raleigh magnet school beat out squads from 19 other middle schools.
Students competed by answering, in a quiz-show format, questions from a list of 27 books they had read in advance.
More 2006
This year's competition was different. In previous years, middle schools sent separate teams for sixth, seventh and eighth grades. Wake's winning eighth-grade team advanced to the state competition.
This year, each middle school sent only one team consisting of students of different grade levels. The competition also was run for the first time by the district's Academically Gifted program, although the competition was open to all students.
Martin defeated Davis Drive Middle School in the final round. The team will advance to the state regional event April 3 in Johnston County.
Martin's team consists of Sanaa Bhatti, Megan Brown, Valerie Chiang, Rachel Harris, Julie Ma, Matt McGoogan, Rachael Rhee, Katia Roze, Julie Sullivan, Madhulika Vulimiri and Bethany Wilkes. The adviser is Mark Nettles, and the media specialists are Janice Edwards and Deborah Pendleton.
The second-place team from Davis Drive Middle in Cary consists of Brianna Davis, Atima Huria, Ranjani Iyer, Patrick Kim, Ji-yeon Koh, Dianwen Li, Krishna Pakuri, Rishi Simha, Kaitlin Sullivan, Travis Tippens, Squeenie Tsang and Soumya Viswanath. The advisers are Billie Gillespie, Bridget Hayes, Julie Luca, Ginny Paisie, Jen Pitarra and Monica Yllanes.
The competition was sponsored by the school district and The News & Observer.
Farther in the Odyssey
Also Saturday, teams from 12 schools in Wake County scored well enough to advance to the state finals of the Odyssey of the Mind competition.
The weekend's Eastern Region competition in Chapel Hill drew 824 students from 120 teams. Students competed in events such as designing and building a balsa wood structure to see how much weight it would hold and creating and presenting an original performance that includes a scene that takes place in ancient Egypt.
The winning teams from Wake are Apex Middle, Davis Drive Elementary, Exploris Middle, Hunter Elementary, Lead Mine Elementary, Morrisville Elementary, North Ridge Elementary, Partnership Elementary, Salem Elementary, Salem Middle, Southeast Raleigh High and Wakefield High.
To see the complete results, go to www.ncome.org.
The state finals will be held April 1 at Appalachian State University in Boone. Teams that win at the state level will advance to the world finals from May 24 to 27 at Iowa State University in Ames.
T. Keung Hui can be reached at 829-4534 or khui@newsobserver.com.
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