Ludington Daily
News Staff Report
VICTORY TWP. — Middle school students
from 12 local schools gathered at West Shore Community
College Wednesday for the 24th annual MathCounts test
provided by local engineers.
“It was tough, especially the last few questions,”
said Krishan Patel, a Manistee Area Public Schools
seventh-grader.
“I didn’t know a lot of the problems, I just wanted
to see if I could do it,” Sam Sweet, a Walkerville
seventh-grader, said about participating in this year’s
test.
A total of 209 students — a new MathCounts record —
tested their math skills against the questions developed
by the engineers. They came from Ludington, Mason County
Central, Mason County Eastern, Baldwin, Hart, Shelby,
Walkerville, Manistee Area Public Schools, Manistee
Catholic Central, Onekama, Bear Lake and Brethren.
This year’s top teams were one from Hart in first
place, one from Onekama in second place, one from MCC in
third place and one from Manistee in fourth place, said
Jim Nordlund Sr., of Nordlund and Associates, who has
helped sponsor the event since its beginning. The top
individual was Chris Blevins of Manistee and the
Countdown Round winner was Dave Anderson of MCC.
All the participating students qualify for $350 in
free tuition for math classes at WSCC, Nordlund said,
through the Lee B. Drelles Memorial Math Counts
scholarship.
The local Math Counts program was launched to promote
math and engineering and interest area middle school
students in those subjects.
“I thought it would be a good experience, get to make
new friends with the other teams and I like the
competition,” Danielle Smith, a Ludington sixth grader,
said about the test.
“It was kind of hard (the test), some parts we
haven’t even covered yet,” Smith said.