OC Students compete in Annual Math Madness

It was a windy and snowy morning as the fourth Annual Math Madness blew into Oconee County on March 2.  Despite the cold and snow, 358 students from third, fourth and fifth grade, representing all eleven elementary schools showed up at Walhalla High School to compete in Math Madness.  To kick off the competition this year, Oconee County was honored to have astronaut Colonel Patrick Forrester from NASA speak to the students and parents.  He expressed his excitement at seeing so many students and their parents out on a Saturday morning wanting to participate in a math competition. Math Madness began four years ago by Linda Hostetler, as an avenue to promote how much fun math can be at the elementary level. The competition is comprised of three parts for each grade level: Algorithms, Problem Solving and Team Competition.  The students compete in Algorithms and Problem Solving independently, while the Team Competition is made up of five students per team.  Hundreds of hours go into planning Math Madness and over 160 volunteers, made up of teachers, student teachers, district personal, parents and middle and high school students, assisted during the competition. The School District thanks the following sponsors for supporting this competition: Oconee County Industrial Group, Duke Energy, Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative, McDonalds, Sandvic, Diamond T Promotions, Bob and Fran Hanson, Jim and Elisabeth Gadd and the Education Foundation of Oconee County.  The following businesses also donated food: Crystal Gyser; Domino’s; Ingles; Subway; Walmart; Ye’ Old Sandwich Shoppe and Bi-Lo.  The following are the winners from each competition: Third Grade Algorithms – Tyler Ballenger from Walhalla; Fourth Grade Algorithms – Samantha Sherman of Oakway Intermediate; Fifth Grade Algorithms – Adam Thorsland from Walhalla; Third Grade Problem Solving – Dani Brannon from Fair-Oak; Fourth Grade Problem Solving – Quint Mayer from Walhalla; Fifth Grade Problem Solving – Tori Harrison from Oakway Intermediate;  Third Grade Team Competition: 1st Place – Autumn Shedd, Aaron Shedd, Brooks Hale, Levi Lyle and Lindsay Durham all from Westminster; 2nd Place – Max Hill, Elisi Halbig, Blake Crawford, and J.C. Mitchell all from Ravenel and Kimberly Skislak from Walhalla; 3rd Place – Gracie Claire McCall, Tara McDonald, Sheridan McCoy, Ella Burrell and Michelle Davis all from Walhalla. Fourth Grade Team Competition: 1st Place – Emma Edwards, Andre Moss, Walker Bowen, Hunter Moody and Ansley Brock all from Northside; 2nd Place – Carley Sewell, Samantha Sherman, Jacob Collins, Noah Boggs and Caleb Kern all from Oakway Intermediate; 3rd Place – Abby Thorsland, Quint Mayer, Amy Clark, Ansley Mattox and Noah Jenson all from Walhalla. Fifth Grade Team Competition: 1st Place – James Hanvey, Brady Abbott, Adam Thorsland, Avery McCall and Sunny Patel all from Walhalla; 2nd Place – Kansas Bryant, Cody Huff, Gavin Broome, Liz Entrekin and Grace Rankin all from Westminster; 2 teams tied for 3rd Place – Corbin Burgess, Riley Callahan, Shelby Owen, Hunter Griffin and Isaia Mathis all from Tamassee-Salem; the other 3rd Place Team – Mitchell Mainous, Anne Kowalski, Katie Vanalter and Kacee Bridgman all from Keowee and Kalista Baze from Oakway Intermediate.