Students from Lincoln East, Pius X take top honors at Math Day

Lincoln East's Alex Churchill took the top individual award at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's 18th-annual Math Day Nov. 8, and led his team to second place in the Class A Math Bowl tournament. Lincoln's Pius X took top honors.

Churchill's win in a field of 1,396 students from 94 Nebraska high schools earned him an $8,000 Gallup Math Day scholarship to UNL. Churchill also placed first in 2005 and 2006.

The second- through fifth-place finishers each won $4,000 scholarships: 2, Adam Pillard (Lincoln East); 3, Alan Xu (Lincoln East); 4, Ben Kotopka (Pius X); 5, Will Scheideler (Lincoln East). The sixth- through 10th-place finishers each won $2,000 scholarships: 6, Brady Gilg (Lincoln East); 7, Jim Hao (Lincoln East); 8, Skyler Lewis (Omaha North); 9, Benjamin Young (Millard North); 10, Sam Lathrop (Mt. Michael).

Pius X's winning Math Bowl team included Marian Hanigan, Ben Kotopka, Ben Magstadt and James Morin. Besides Churchill, East's second-place team included Jim Hao and Alan Xu.

In Math Bowl finals in other classes, an Omaha Duchesne team of Nora Kovar, Catherine Tran and Sally Winkler beat Seward (Theresa Honeycutt, Kevin Jerger, Josh Luff, Jake Weber) to win Class B. In Class C, an Elkhorn Mount Michael team of Josh Cox, Rio Kim, Sam Lathrop, Luke Weitkemper and Andrew Wimmer took first place over Creek Valley (Sarah Counts, Sam Dailey, Marshall Everitt and Timothy Kinoshita). In Class D, Elgin Pope John's team (Jessica Bartak, Mikayla Brune, Jordan Engle, Mark Moser and Andy Starman) took first place over Exeter-Milligan's team (Klaire Jorgensen, Dean Kassik and Kelsey Moore).

The purpose of Math Day is to promote the mathematical sciences and UNL. It consists of two individual and two team mathematics competitions, information about majors and departments, career information, and recreational mathematical activities.

All students start with a multiple-choice preliminary exam called PROBE I (Problems Requiring Original and Brilliant Effort). The top three females and males receive awards. The top 50 students move on to take an exam called PROBE II. The top 10 on PROBE II are awarded a total of $34,000 in four-year scholarships to UNL.

There are two team competitions. The first competition is determined by averaging the top scores from each school on PROBE I. The second is a double-elimination tournament pitting teams against each other with trophies given to the top two teams in each class. All the PROBE I questions assume only two years of high school algebra and one year of geometry. The answers to PROBE II questions require the creativity and originality expected from only the very best students.

The top three female students in the PROBE 1 competition were: 1, Grace Lyden (Omaha Westside); 2, Kelley Christensen (Lincoln East); 3, tie, Maesen Churchill (Lincoln East), Natasha Doty (Lincoln East), Laura Wirth (Grand Island Central Catholic), and Tina Zheng (Lincoln East). The top three male students were Churchill, Xu and Scheideler.

The top five teams in PROBE 1 by class were:

Class A: Lincoln East 84.6 (of 100 points possible), Omaha Creighton Prep 74.4, Omaha Westside 67.6, Lincoln Southwest 67.2, Lincoln Southeast 64.6.

Class B: Omaha Skutt 57.75, Seward 55.75, Yutan 48.75, Norris 48.5, McCook 47.75.

Class C: Elkhorn Mount Michael 71.67, Grand Island Central Catholic 55.67, Wood River 47.33, Elmwood-Murdock 47, Weeping Water 46.67.

Class D: Waco Nebraska Evangelical Lutheran 54.67, Elgin Pope John 44, Fremont Bergan 42, Lindsay Holy Family 41, Kenesaw 40

CONTACTS: Gordon Woodward, Professor, Mathematics, (402) 472-7239;
Lori Mueller, Administrator, Math Day, (402) 472-4319 (lmueller@math.unl.edu)