May 13, 2008  

Jefferson Middle, Greenway School win Pellissippi State math competition

Some of the fiercest competition isn’t on the playing field: it’s in your mind and it’s won by outthinking your opponent.

More than 600 intellectual athletes went head to head in the 2008 Tennessee Middle School Mathematics Competition hosted by Pellissippi State Technical Community College April 25.

Sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders representing 30 middle schools from all over East Tennessee put their calculating powers to the test.

They started the competition, which was designed to test their math ability and creative thought, at 9 a.m. By 1 p.m., it was all over but the shouting of the winners.

The competition was divided into two categories: team and individual. In the sixth-grade division, Jefferson Middle School of Oak Ridge claimed the top team spot, with Bearden Middle coming in second and Farragut Middle third.

In the seventh-grade category, the Greenway School (Knoxville) team took first place. Farragut Middle came in second and West Valley Middle (Knoxville) third.

Jefferson Middle School placed first among the eighth-grade teams, Farragut Middle second and Bearden Middle third.

The individual winners include Demitrios Bovapoulos, an eighth-grader at Bearden Middle School; Dalton Chatlee, a seventh-grader at West Valley, and Larry Shen, a sixth-grader at Jefferson.

Pellissippi State began hosting the middle school math competition to fill a void, says Jonathan Lamb, Pellissippi State associate math professor.

“There are still great high school math competitions, such as the one sponsored by the Tennessee Mathematics Teachers Association,” he said, “but there was no significant middle school equivalent for area students until the Pellissippi State middle school competition was started in 2000.”

“Since then we have had over 3,000 of East Tennessee’s best middle school students come to compete and, hopefully, inspire further interest in mathematics. We have been the largest middle school math competition in the state for the last three years.”

Funding for the past three years has come from a gift made by Oak Ridge Associated Universities through the Pellissippi State Foundation.

“I feel very fortunate to have a company like ORAU see the importance of our competition,” said Lamb. “Without their support, it would not be possible to have the competition anywhere near the level that it has been.”    

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