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Texas teen wins National Geography Bee

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The Associated Press

Published: May 20, 2009

Updated: 05/20/2009 01:07 pm

WASHINGTON - Which state has the biggest geography whiz?

The answer is Texas, as 13-year-old Eric Yang proved Wednesday when he won the National Geographic Bee in Washington. The teen will take a $25,000 college scholarship home to The Colony, a community north of Dallas.

Eric, who didn't miss a single question in the finals, won on the third question of a tiebreaker round: Timis County shares its name with a tributary of the Danube and is located in the western part of which European country?

Eric gave the correct answer — Romania. His opponent, 14-year-old Arjun Kandaswamy, of Beaverton, Oregon, wrote down "Hungary."

"It was just an educated guess," Eric said afterward.

Students representing Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, Oregon, Utah and Wisconsin also made it to the finals. Alex Trebek of "Jeopardy!" hosted the competition. In earlier rounds, one student from every U.S. state and territory, along with a student from a military family, competed.

There was one question from Trebek that stumped the winner, who was born in Singapore and moved to Texas at age 2.

While introducing the competitors, Trebek asked Eric to name one of his weaknesses. "Um," said Eric, seemingly unable to think of one.

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