Whitney Shuman, a senior at Southeast Bulloch High School, won the 2011 Georgia Trig-Star Competition sponsored by the National Society of Professional Surveyors.
    This is the sixth year in a row that a Bulloch County high school student has won the event and students from across all our high schools continue to dominate the top spots in the annual, timed trigonometry competition. Shuman will receive $1,000 and be honored at the NSPS’s State Banquet in July.
    Supriya Immaneni, a junior at Statesboro High School placed third and Megan Moore, a senior at Portal High School, placed fifth in the event. 
    “Bulloch County Schools continues to produce some of the best math students in the state,” said local surveyor James Anderson. “Great math teachers, like Susan Boddiford of SEBHS, Chad Prosser of SHS, and Dennis Moore of PMHS are excelling in their level of teaching.” 
    Anderson helps generate interest in the event and sponsors interested students each year from Bulloch County.
    “Mr. Anderson serves as the state coordinator of the event,” said SEB math teacher Susan Boddiford.  “He is instrumental in ensuring that all of our schools participate each year. He visits our classrooms, talks about the uses of trigonometry in the surveying profession and shows a video to the class that gives real life applications of the trigonometry laws and rules we learn. My students look forward to competing every year.”
    The competition tests students’ ability to practically apply trigonometry principals through various, timed exercises.
    The problems incorporate the use of right triangle formulas, circle formulas, and the laws of sines and cosines. The contest helps promote careers in surveying and mapping to students across the country.
    Last year Samuel Hicks, a 2010 graduate of SEBHS won and also achieved the seventh-highest score in the nation. PHS’s Jarrell Robinson placed third last year. Past winners include 2009’s champion Julie Shen of SHS, who placed sixth in the nation as well. Other past winners, all from SEB, are 2008 Casey Woodrum, 2007 Toby Sanders, and 2006 Vance Schearback.