Minnesota kid falls short in Geographic Bee, still a winner

Gopi Ramanathan of Sartell made it to the finals of the National Geographic Bee, competing this morning with the top 10 finalists left from several million mostly middle-aged middle school-aged kids who competed in local and regional bees across the country for the chance at a $25,000 college scholarship and a trip to the Galápagos Islands.

Gopi came up a little short. The Associated Press reports that 14-year-old Rahul Nagvekar of Missouri City, Texas, won this year’s National Geographic Bee this morning.

As I noted earlier, if you’ve ever been to one of the state geographic bees, you know how hard the kids work and how well prepared they are. You might be able to guess your way to the finals of the national Spelling Bee, not the Geographic Bee.

Gopi is good and did Minnesota proud today.

A Wisconsin kid, Vansh Jain, came in second and will take home a $15,000 scholarship.

— Paul Tosto