Eighth-grader among those heading for geography bee

Launceston is a port on which island in the Southern Hemisphere?

Tasmania

Guam

Palau

If you know the answer to this question is Tasmania, you might qualify for the state National Geographic Bee at Pacific Lutheran University on Friday.

At Glover Middle School, eighth-grader Claire Reid has been selected to represent her school at the competition.

“She’s an excellent student in advanced classes,” said Assistant Principal Karyn Kirkingburg.

Claire, 14, said she qualified to compete at the state level after competing against some of her classmates at Glover.

“My mom says I can just retain information,” Claire said.

She hadn’t done any formal studying before that first initial competition, but has been studying up since. She said the questions usually revolve around geographic features, primary exports, capitals, cities and more.

The winner of the state competition will get a chance to travel to Washington, D.C., for the national competition, hosted by “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek.

This is her first trip to the competition, but she said she imagines the other competitors will fall into a few different personality types. There will be those who are very supportive of the other competitors and those who will try to psych out the others.

“I think I’m going to fall into the group of people who are totally bewildered,” she said.

When she’s not studying for the bee, Claire said she likes to hang out at home, play on her computer and read. She once had dreams of working as a computer animator for Pixar, but now is leaning toward making computer graphics for marketing purposes.

And while she’s studying about the globe, it’s the cinema that influenced her top travel pick. She said “The Lord of the Rings” movies make her want to see New Zealand.

“It’s really pretty,” she said.