Schools

Geschke Joins Brothers as Geography Bee Champ

Seventh grader has the answer when it counts.

Bagherhat, a city southwest of Dhaka that has a historic mosque, is in the lowlands north of the Bay of Bengal in what country?

Know the answer?

Tommy Geschke did.

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The School of St. Mary seventh grader correctly answered Bangladesh to become the third person in his family to be crowned Geography Bee champion Wednesday.

“I was thinking about countries that I knew in Asia and southeast Asia, and areas around there,” Geschke said of formulating his answer.

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Any doubts about the answer?

“I was confident it was the right answer. I know that one,” he said.

The contest was originally slated to take place last week, but the snow blizzard canceled school and Geshke had to wait a week. Normally that wouldn’t be a big deal, but Tommy comes from a family of geography bee winners.

His brother Riley and Scott set the table with their own geography championships in the past. In fact, the year Riley won it, Tommy finished second as a fifth grader.

With such a daunted family history to live up to, Tommy tried a little reverse psychology as the competition rolled around.

“A lot of people think I would always be in the competition,” Tommy said. “I always try to think I’m not, so I do better.”

Last year, Tommy didn’t reach the finals. He even remembers the question that knocked him out.

“It was a question about the large islands off the coast of Antartica,” he said.

Tommy was one of 24 finalists seated in the school’s gymnasium facing question after question. Each student had advanced to the school finals by winning their classroom geography bee. Some of the questions are multiple choice, some ask the student to provide the answer. By the end of the third round, 11 students were left. After the fifth round, seven. Then five students were eliminated in the sixth round to leave two.

“I start out nervous and then get used to it,” Tommy said.

Tommy remained in the competition even after missing questions in the seventh and ninth rounds because his opponent, Quinn Gaughan, also missed his question. The separation came in the 10th.

He could have attributed the win to studying harder for this competition, but he couldn’t.

“I usually study more. This year I didn’t study as much. Guess I was lazy,” he shrugged.

But still smarter when it counted.

The students who competed in the finals were:

8th Grade: Matthew Talbot, Katie Hansen, Quinn Gaughan, Tommy Trkla, Quinn Foley, and Spencer Welte.

7th Grade: Ryan Camardo, Carolina Rodriguez Borjas, William LeVert, Tommy Geschke, Dominick Haubner, and Michael Banas.

6th Grade: Michael Jelcz, Thomas Olson, Christian Braun, Michael Finnegan, Luc Foster, and Michael Rocha.

5th Grade: Benjamin Hans, Maren Hess, Annie Aberle, Bo Sensenbrenner, Jack Powers, and Mercedes Schabel.


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