Local students do well in math tourney

Roger Lee, Soo Ji Ha, Cheol Min Shin and Bernadeth Piamonte competed in the Mathcounts National Competition on May 7, 2004, in Washington, DC.

The CNMI team coach was Ramir Trinidad from Marianas Baptist Academy.

These four students earned the right to represent the CNMI by finishing in the top four individual places at the CNMI Commonwealth Competition earlier this year.

At the National Competition, Cheol Min Shin of Marianas Baptist Academy finished the highest of all the CNMI “Mathletes” and not far behind her was Soo Ji Ha of Saipan Community School. Lee and Piamonte rounded out the CNMI’s scores with strong showings in the Sprint Round, according to a statement send to media offices.

The statement did not indicate the individual scores of the four students.

It said the CNMI mathletes were well received in Washington where they made a lot of friends and were able to test themselves against the best math students in the nation.

Mathcounts is the only national math coaching and competition for the 6th, 7th and 8th grade students and this the 10th year that the CNMI has competed in the program.

These four students were four of 228 students at the national competition from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Department of Defense and State Department schools worldwide.

More than 17,000 Mathcounts volunteers from the business and education communities annually organize and conduct the program in communities nationwide.

Locally EFC Engineers and Architects Corp. coordinate the program. Primary sponsors for the local program include Continental Airlines, Chong’s Corp., Rep. Ramon A. Tebuteb, DFS Saipan Inc., EFC Engineers & Architects Corp., Joeten Charitable Foundation, Mobil Oil Marianas Inc. and Subway Investment. Local sponsors also include Deloitte & Touche Tohmatsu, Saipan Shipping Company, Saipan Garment Manufacturing Association, and UMDAdeux.

Nationally Mathcounts is sponsored by the CNA Foundation, the National Society of Professional Engineers and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. National sponsors also include the General Motors Foundation, Lockheed Martin, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Texas Instruments Inc. and 3M Foundation.