St Louis '16 or Bust for Tahoma High Math Team

By Malinda Shirley

The Tahoma High School Math Team returned from Salt Lake City Math Nationals with 2 trophies in hand and a newly elected National Officer! After months of preparation, our national math team tackled pre-calculus, calculus, number theory, irrational numbers, NORAD and NSA, and more!

The first national trophy was earned with the 50-page yearbook that was constructed to exhibit our team’s activities throughout the year. The theme of the yearbook was centered on the movie WRECK-IT RALPH. Lauren Baek, Ruby Baek, Alyssa Truong, Jennifer Peng and Molly Miyamoto created the masterpiece which won 2nd place at the National level. Coach Malinda Shirley points out that, “Although some people think we just sit around and work out math problems, there is a lot more to the THS Math team than that! We mentor younger students, tutor high school students, host district/state competitions, and study high level math topics beyond the normal class level. Another fun part of the team is the artistic team that creates the yearbook! They do an outstanding job bringing our activities to life!” Senior Lauren Baek is a veteran at this. She has captained the yearbook team for the past two years, bringing home a coveted second place both years. This year’s cover, by Ruby Baek, got perfect scores from judges for the eye-catching design which led to 2 overall perfect scores from judges at the competition. Jennifer Peng was present at the convention to accept this honor for the team. Peng noted, “It was really rewarding getting second place in the nation. To see our hard work pay off this way was an acknowledgment because of all the time we spent on it!”

The next highlight of the convention was seeing rising-junior Rhiana Martin being elected a National Officer for next year. Rhiana was our school delegate and was elected by Hawaii and Washington to be our Regional delegate. This led to her election for one of the four national offices as Parliamentarian for the St. Louis Convention in 2016. She has specific responsibilities throughout the year and was awarded a $550 scholarship to the convention next summer. In addition to this honor, Rhiana won 5th place in the GEMINI competition which tested her overall knowledge of Pre-Calculus and its applications. Martin “found the convention a time to meet new friends” who supported her in her election as a Mu Alpha Theta National officer for the coming year. This is the second time Tahoma has received this honor.

Dylon Maertens loved the analytical part of the competition where he felt “it was fun seeing how different team members solved problems on the interschool test.” President Melissa Anthony wanted to thank the volunteers who came to help prepare us for nationals. “This really helped broaden our knowledge base.” Retired teacher Dr. Paul Muckerheide, retired Boeing statistician Dr. Tom Tosch, consultant Terry Burlison, and previous math team president Emily Burlison all assisted Coach Shirley this summer.

Jon Gort did an outstanding job at the convention where he earned a top score in Calculus Applications. His “favorite event was ciphering. It’s a fast-paced, high pressure, but forgiving, set of questions” drawn from a multitude of mathematical topics to solve in 4 minutes. Sam Stevens and Rhiana Martin both gave talks on mathematical topics. Stevens received 11th place on his talk. He noted that “after preparing 2 months on the “Math of NORAD”, I wanted to make sure I included all of my most difficult points of the presentation.” Coach Shirley commented, “Our team was part of a 700-person national convention. Our 6 competitors represented the mathematical talent from Tahoma in a tome of mathematical areas. I was particularly impressed with the way the team combined their various strengths in problem solving throughout the 5-day event.”

The Math team is always looking for capable students who want to share their time and talents in tutoring, competing, mentoring, artistry, and analytical abilities. Students in grades 8 through 12 may participate at Tahoma High School. Contact mshirley@tahomasd.us for more details.