2006 Missouri Panasonic Team Places 3rd in the Nation!

Submitted by MACA on Fri, 06/30/2006 - 12:00pm

Andrew Hoekzema was named to the six-person All-America Team and receives an additional $1,000 scholarship!
Missouri won their opening preliminary round and advanced automatically to the semi-finals with the following results:

  1. Missouri - 347
  2. New Mexico - 128
  3. New Jersey - 101
  4. Washington - 91

Missouri won their semi-final round and advanced to the finals with the following results:

  1. Missouri - 259
  2. Florida - 207
  3. California - 185
  4. Alabama - 126
  5. Oklahoma - 122

In the finals, Missouri was in the top three for most of the game. After missing a question and a challenge to the stated answer, Missouri found itself trailing Pennsylvania by one point with only the 30 point worksheet remaining. Missouri correctly answered 28/30 to claim third place. The results were as follows:

  1. Maryland - 211
  2. Florida - 187
  3. Missouri - 171
  4. Pennsylvania - 166
  5. Virginia - 154
  6. Tennessee - 146

Each team member receives a $500 scholarship and a tournament ring. Congratulations to coach Allen and all the team! You have represented the state of Missouri with distinction!

The 2006 Missouri Team consists of

  • senior David Hoffelmeyer of Savannah
  • senior Andrew Hoekzema of Westminster Christian
  • senior Brandon Thomas of Mound City
  • junior Nathan Kinast of Thomas Jefferson
  • sophomore Charles Dees of North Kansas City

Mr. Larry Allen of North Kansas City will coach this noteworthy team. Team Missouri will look to improve on their 2005 performance where they lost in a semi-final match.
The Panasonic Academic Challenge is a highly academic national high school competition modeled after Florida's statewide tournament. One team of four to six players and one coach are selected to represent each state and U.S. territory. As many as six teams may compete against each other in one competition. This is not a quick response, trivial pursuit contest. Instead, it is a slower-paced tournament in which players are asked questions from the areas of mathematics, science, language arts, social studies, the fine arts, foreign language (French and Spanish) and technology. The questions are written by educators from high schools and colleges throughout the nation.
Missouri will face New Mexico, New Jersey, and Washington in their first round of competition on Sunday, June 11 at 4:00.