WASHINGTON — Utahn Derek Wells, 10, was the youngest of 55 contestants in the National Geography Bee on Tuesday, and he couldn't quite keep up with the older youths.
Wells, a fifth-grader at Pinnacle Canyon Academy in Helper, managed to answer only two of his nine questions correctly in a preliminary round. A near-perfect score would have been needed to move into the nationally televised finals on Wednesday.
"I choked," he told his mother — but with a smile — after the round. But Paula Wells, who is also one of his teachers at the charter school, consoled him, saying, "You did better than I would have."
Wells, champion of the Utah Geography Bee, was only one of three 10-year-olds in the competition, open to youngsters up to 15 in the eighth grade. The 55 contestants in the national bee beat out 5 million school- and state-level participants nationwide to win a trip to Washington.
Wells was half as tall as most of the older contestants and had to look up constantly at a too-tall microphone. Many of the older youths also were repeat state champions, including four in the group of 11 that Wells faced in his preliminary round.
Wells was able to answer correctly that the country whose capital is Sarajevo is Bosnia-Herzegovina and was able to pick out of a list of migrant groups an example of voluntary immigration.
Some of the tough questions that tripped him included:
Which river begins in the Kunlun Mountains and is disrupted by the Three Gorges Dam? (The Yangtze.)
A pipeline called the National Water Carrier takes water to the arid Negev portion of what country? (Israel.)
Which European nation on the Balkan peninsula has a predominantly Muslim population? (Albania.)
Paula Wells said her son began reading maps at age 3 and writing about the things he saw in them.
"He loves anything to do with geography and travel," she said. "He loves to draw maps — about anything." He still has three more years of eligibility to try to return.
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