Hot Springs Middle School student Christian Boekhout has become the first contestant to win four straight state geographic bees in Arkansas, and will return to the National Geographic Bee in his final year of eligibility.
Boekhout will return to his home away from home next month for the 26th annual National Geographic Bee in Washington, D.C. The competition will be held May 19-21, with the final round scheduled to be broadcast live on national television.
The winner of the national competition will receive a $50,000 scholarship. Only 54 students advance to the national competition out of the 5 million-plus that enter every year.
The final round of the 2014 competition will be moderated for the first time by award-winning broadcast journalist Soledad O'Brien. She takes over from "Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek who moderated for the Bee's first 25 years.
Boekhout has now won the state geographic bee a record four consecutive times. He faced his stiffest competition yet on April 4 at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.
Students are given eight questions in the preliminary round. The top scores advance to the final round and a tiebreaker is used to determine the top 10.
The state tiebreaker usually separates contestants who answer six of the eight questions correctly. Enough students scored higher this year that only students who answered seven out of eight correctly qualified for the tiebreaker.
Some other states with higher populations may see dozens of students earn perfect scores in the preliminary rounds. Boekhout earned one of only two perfect scores in Arkansas.
Two other finalists lasted longer than usual into the competition this year. The final question was "What sea in the Arctic Ocean separates the Taymyr Peninsula from the Novaya Zemlya archipelago?" Boekhout delivered the correct answer, the Kara Sea.
"I got kind of nervous sitting there," Boekhout said. "Because they weren't getting out. I wasn't getting out."
Boekhout has not missed a single question in the school and state bees this year. He has missed at least one question at the school or state level each previous year.
"This year there was so much pressure because it's his last year to compete," said Becky Rosburg, executive principal of Hot Springs Intermediate School and Park Magnet, a PYP World School.
"I think we all wanted it so badly for him to go back one more time before he finished. We knew he is capable of it, but we've never seen the competition go that long."
Boekhout began competing in the school competition in second grade as a gifted and talented student under Rosburg at Park. He was not eligible to compete in the state competition until he was in fourth grade.
Rosburg moderates the school geographic bee at Hot Springs. She has traveled with Boekhout to D.C. the previous three years and will travel with him again this year.
"Just to have a student reach this level, that doesn't happen very often," Rosburg said. "Only the top 100 kids in the state even get to compete at the state level.
"This is once in a lifetime thing. He lives for this."
Sandra Billie, Boekhout's mother, said he felt little pressure in his first two years at state. He earned seventh place at state as a fourth-grader before winning the competition for the first time in fifth grade. She said the pressure has increased for a different reason each year.
Boekhout wanted to prove as a sixth-grader that his first win was not a fluke. He wanted to return last year for the 25th Bee, which was Trebek's final year as moderator. Boekhout will age out of the competition after this year.
"It's always a conflicting feeling of excitement and fear," Billie said.
"And at the end, relief," Boekhout said.
"It's something, since he was a little boy, that he has always done," Rosburg said. "I see him continuing that. Maybe not the studying part, but reading for true enjoyment because he truly loves geography."
National contestants are given nine questions in the preliminary round. The tiebreaker usually separates students that answer eight of the nine questions correctly.
Boekhout answered seven preliminary questions correctly a year ago. He also answered seven correctly as a sixth-grader, when he tied for 17th at the national Bee.
The National Geographic Society covers the costs of Boekhout's trip and that of a school representative. Plum Creek, Real Estate Investment Trust, sponsors the parents in Arkansas and will cover the cost of the airfare for his parents.
Billie said all family members, including Milton Boekhout, Christian's father, and Liliana, Christian's sister, will be returning to D.C. to support Boekhout in May. Billie said they are planning to visit some new sites this time and possibly visit some colleges in the area.
"Now it feels like coming back to something really familiar," Billie said.
Park and Hot Springs Intermediate School also saw students quality for the state geography bee. Rosburg said she will continue to moderate and support the school geographic bee program after Boekhout ages out.
"It's definitely a program we will continue and I will continue to do, because I love this program too," Rosburg said. "It's something we'll continue to do and hopefully Christian will come back one day and moderate for me."
Local on 04/24/2014