An article in the Chicago Tribune, Palatine student qualifies for National Geographic Bee in Washington, D.C., describes how a 13 year old won the slot for Illinois in the National Geographic Bee:
At night, 13-year-old Anton Karpovich curls up with a good atlas.
“Geography gives me a way to get away from the world,” said Anton, who has Asperger’s syndrome, a mild form of autism.
On Friday, he didn’t want to get away. Anton, an eighth-grader from Walter R. Sundling Middle School in Palatine, won the state qualifier for the National Geographic Bee.
The rest is on the Tribune’s website.
He gets a paid trip to DC for the national competition. I wish him good luck.
Left Brain Right Brain 
I am the state coordinator for the Illinois Geographic Bee, sponsored by the National Geographic Society. I have been enjoying Anton since he was in fourth grade. As fourth grade teacher myself, I worked with his teachers to help make the Bee a comfortable event for him to participate. In fourth grade, he came to the Bee, but it was too overwhelming for him to participate. The next year we worked with a small flip book that helped keep him calm and focused. He came back again in 7th grade after not qualifying in 6th grade and he made the top 10, taking 6th place overall. This year when I introduced him in the awards ceremony as the state winner, I got all choked up, tried to hug him and naturally that was awkward! 🙂 I am so proud of him and wish him all the best in the National Finals May 25th and 26th in Washington D.C.
Ani Smith,
thanks for telling the story here. I wish him good luck in DC. The flip book idea seems to have worked well–sounds like a great support.
I too just love the atlas.
It’s the one place I feel I could never be lost!
Good for Anton, but an Illini? Sounds like expired pasta that’ll make you sick! The correct (I think) terminology may sound worse, but is Illinoisan. Don’t get me started on that one…
Go get ’em Anton! Make all those Annoyins proud!
@livsparents: I can’t speak for the whole state, but I believe that Illini is correct. At least, IIRC, the university’s teams are the Fighting Illini, (or were, at least when I was in college), in honor of the Illini Indians.
Dawn, Livsparents,
Technically Illini isn’t correct since I don’t know if the kid is native American. But, yes, I chose the name based on the Illini who gave the sate its name.
Just to clarify–
I don’t recall what Illinois citizens call themselves. Illinoisians? Illini just seemed to flow better.
In days of yore, I was also a contestant in the Geography Bee. I competed for 3 years, made it to state level every time, but no national competition for me. Thinking back on it now, a whole lot of those kids must have been ASD. I’m gregarious, so I was surprised that a lot of kids would avoid my friendly gestures. And the contestants were overwhelmingly male. I counted only 3 girls out of 100 total. And a lot of kids would just recite countries and capitals either alphabetically or by continent, but I think that was just a common study method.
Geography doesn’t lend itself as well to ASD tendencies compared to spelling (the material is just too broad!!!), but they do attract similar crowds. I used to compete in the Scripps Spelling Bee, too, and the speller to beat was a severely autistic kid a year behind me.
Just for a point of reference, when I was in the Geography Bee, I suddenly had to unlearn the USSR and start learning the names of the new post-Soviet republics like Byelorussia and Tajikistan. And Eritrea was a new thing, too.
As an Illinoisan teacher and a native Illinoisan (pronounced “ill i NOY an”) I didn’t bat an eye at the Illini “ill EYE nye” reference. That is intrinsic to our identity here in Illinois and perfectly appropriate and creative to use in my opinion.