Atlanta, GA: Georgia’s own Sanjeev (Ricky) Uppaluri, a fifth grader from Fulton Sunshine Elementary School in Roswell came in third and received a $10,000 prize at the 2013 National Geographic Bee finals held in Washington DC recently.
Uppaluri represented the state of Georgia after winning the state level contest in April that included 90 finalists from across the state.
The National Geographic Bee website listed his hobbies as “looking at maps and reading chapter books”. Among those he admires are his grandparents, uncle and aunt, as they introduced him to geography. The best place he’s been is Agra, India; he saw the Taj Mahal.
Around five million students participated in this year’s contest. The number was whittled down to 54 and then to 10 for the final round. Questions ranged from lions in Botswana to mountain ranges in Asia and port cities in England.
Twelve-year-old Indian-origin boy Sathwik Karnik won the 2013 National Geographic Bee by correctly naming Chimborazo, a peak in Ecuador, as the farthest point on earth from the Equator. A seventh grader from King Philip Regional Middle School in Norfolk, Massachusetts, in the US, he won the 25th edition of the bee in a heated final against 13-year-old Conrad Oberhaus of Lincolnshire, Illinois.
