Henderson’s Dylan Mara wins school, eyes state competition

By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter

Dylan Mara and his sister, Dedannan, used to play a game made up by their father, Declan, who would challenge the children to name individual states and their capitals.

“He’d say a state, and we’d try to guess the capital,” 9-year-old Dylan said.

Dedannan, 12, usually won those games.

But Dylan went on to explore the world — at least its geography — and this month became the Joe Henderson Elementary School champion in National Geographic’s Geography Bee.

To be eligible for the Jan. 9 schoolwide competition, made up of a student from each of the fourth- and fifth-grade classes, Dylan bested those in his own fourth-grade class, taught by Andrew Leiser.

Jackie Lynch, the school’s special education assistant whose own son, Brian, now 28, won the same event when he was in fourth grade at Henderson, said the school has participated in the National Geographic contest for at least 20 years.

Dylan’s victory makes him eligible to test for the state-level geography bee. Should he go to the state level and win, he’d automatically be a national-leval participant.

But that next step to the state competition isn’t automatic, Lynch said, and Dylan’s test scores haven’t come back to the school.

Winning his school’s bee wasn’t easy, Dylan said, and he worried about his chances when he got one strike. Unlike baseball, a geography bee competitor is out with a second strike.

The double-elimination competition went to three tiebreakers before Dylan successfully answered a question about a Russian sea his schoolmates didn’t know. “I didn’t brag. That would have been unsportsmanlike,” he said.

Dylan was awarded a medal on a gold ribbon. His teacher called his mother, Siobhan, who in turn called his father.

“They were very proud of me,” he said.

So were other relatives, who sent him presents in honor of his success. “I didn’t know it would be that big a deal.”

Unlike the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which provides study words and pronunciation guides and encourages practice sessions, geography bee competitors are on their own.

So Dylan went online to Wikipedia and to other Internet links Leiser provided him. He played Sheppard Software geography games, and visited other sites. “That’s how I got ready,” he said.

But Dylan didn’t spend all his time studying.

A football fan whose favorite team, the Oakland Raiders, are out of running for the Super Bowl, Dylan is favoring the San Francisco 49ers, who play the New York Giants Sunday, to go all the way.

He also plays soccer with classmates at recess, rides his bicycle, watches television and sometimes plays video games.

The game Dylan once played with his father and sister helped with questions about the United States. But fortunately, Dylan became interested in other countries, an interest sparked by visits to see his grandparents in Ireland, where he saw how frequent rains kept the countryside green.

He learned that Ireland had few earthquakes but gets hurricanes and, in winter, plenty of snow. “They’re farther north,” he said.

His interest spread to learning about Canada, then to South America, Europe and Asia. “I’m still working on Africa, and Australia, too,” he said.

He discovered that in Southeastern Europe, many people call countries by their old names, something he’s found confusing.

He said his studies led him to want to see the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben, and to become an engineer like his father.

Dylan said he was surprised to learn about the world’s earthquakes and tsunamis. But he also was surprised to learn something about himself.

“I didn’t know I could have that talent,” he said.