Local 7th grader competes for national geography prize

The smartest kids in geography class found their way to Washington, D.C. this week to test their knowledge at the "National Geographic" GeoBee. KPCC's Washington Correspondent Kitty Felde tracked down the top California contestant - a Fullerton seventh-grader who knows his way around the world.

Judge: Place the following countries in order according to their population from largest to smallest: Venezuela, Spain, Mongolia.

Kitty Felde: Don't worry if the answer doesn't come to you right away. We're with the master: 12-year-old Samuel Bressler from Fullerton.

Samuel Bressler: Um. Spain, Venezuela, Mongolia?

Judge: Correct.

Felde: Sam's representing California at the 21st annual GeoBee. Top prizes include a $25,000 scholarship and a trip to the Galapagos Islands with Jeopardy host Alex Trebek.

Judge: An east Asian country located on a peninsula east of the Yellow Sea spent much of the 1960s and '70s under an autocratic rule, but now has a democratic government. Give me the number and name of this country.
Bressler: Two, South Korea?
Judge: That's correct.

Felde: Sam remembers the first time he fell in love with places and names.

Bressler: It was in kindergarten when we were doing the maps of the U.S., and I'd plot all 50 states onto a map.
Nelly Bilinkis: I also taught him a game in the car.

Felde: Nelly Bilinkis is Sam's mom. She's from Uzbekistan.

Bilinkis: It's kind of an old game from my childhood. When you pick a city name and the next person has to pick the city from the last letter of the city you did. We played this game in the car. So he learned a lot of cities. Mostly from Soviet Union.

Felde: What is it about geography and you? Why is it such a passion?
Bressler: I don't know. I'm just good at it.

Judge: After several years of battles around the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, violence fell dramatically in 2007 in the predominantly Sunni province of Anbar. Of which country?
Bressler: Iraq?
Judge: Correct.

Felde: Lynda Hodges is Sam's teacher at Fullerton's Ladera Vista Junior High.

Lynda Hodges: Sam walks around with atlases in his hand all the time. And when we have a question, we go to Sam. He knows.

Felde: Hodges says Sam talked the school into holding its own geography bee. Of course, Sam won. And he kept winning at the nationals – until the sudden-death playoff round.

Judge: Sam. New Georgia is to the Solomon Islands as New Ireland is to what?
Bressler: Um. Tonga?
Judge: The correct answer is Papua New Guinea.

Felde: So it must be disappointing for you.
Bressler: Yeah. I was so close.

Felde: Sam was the last kid eliminated. He won't advance to the finals, hosted by Alex Trebek and broadcast on TV. But he still has fans – like his 10-year-old little sister Rachel.

Rachel: I was proud.
Felde: Is that something you'd tell him to his face?
Rachel: Not really.

Felde: Sam Bressler wasn't much interested in the map on display at the Library of Congress here in Washington that shows the first mention of the word "America." He wasn't much interested in any maps right now.

Instead, he's turning to his other passion – ornithology – looking for birds in Rock Creek Park. It's about three miles north of the White House. You can find it on a map – or you can just ask Sam Bressler.