Hillside student victorious in middle school city geography bee

A Hillside Middle School eighth grader is the 2016 Manchester geography champion. The city's four middle schools hosted the first-ever geography bee city championship on March 1. The top three finishers in each school bee qualified for the all-city event at Hillside.

The geography bee works a little differently than the traditional spelling bee. Instead of questions being posed to one student at a time, all of the students answer each question at the same time; they have 30 seconds to write down their responses. Those who answer incorrectly are eliminated, while the rest of the group goes on to answer the next question.

On Tuesday, the final two participants were Cooper Hamel, grade 8, and Kellen Barbee, grade 6, both of them representing Hillside. In the championship round, both boys answered the same three questions, and the winner was determined by who got the most correct. That was Cooper, with two correct responses.

Congratulations to Cooper and Kellen, as well as to the second runner up, sixth grader David Waltonof Middle School at Parkside, and to all the participants!