Eighth-grader keeps winning academic contests

Blaine Matulevich is impressing quite a few people these days.

The St. Matthew's School eighth-grader from Kalispell won all three categories in a recent state-sponsored math contest, competed in the state geography bee Friday and won a scholarship in this year's statewide SAT Challenge for seventh- and eighth-graders.

He shines in sports as well. He was quarterback and played defensive free safety on his school's first-ever football team this fall, is a second baseman and outfielder in the Babe Ruth League, and loves to mountain bike, rock climb, telemark ski and hike the trails at Glacier National Park.

As a sixth-grader, he won the Flathead County spelling bee and competed in the state geography bee.

But Matulevich thinks of himself as just a normal guy.

"It actually wasn't that hard for me," he said of his triple win in the Montana Council of Teachers of Mathematics contest. "It just kind of comes naturally."

He participated with junior high and middle school students across the valley at Flathead High in the local level of that statewide contest.

Eighth-graders tested in three individual categories - number concepts that covered ratio, number patterns, basic statistics and more; "pot luck" topics that threw in coordinate geometry, integer applications, two-step algebraic equations and more; and dimensions and shapes, in which they figured perimeter, area and volume, and used the Pythagorean theorem, among other work.

In addition, St. Matthew's students competed in a team component, in which they placed second.

"In my years as NW Montana site director for the MCTM math contest, only on a few occasions have I encountered a student as distinguished as Blaine Matulevich," Sandy Johnson wrote in a letter to St. Matthew's Principal Gene Boyle.

His individual first-place and team second-place scores are forwarded to the state level, where he could learn by early May whether they are recognized as "state superiors."

"I found out right before spring break," he said of his results. "I was surprised that I did so well."

He turned in an admirable performance, too, in the local levels of the National Geographic geography bee this winter. His final written test results were good enough to include him in the state's top 100 students who competed in a round-robin contest at Billings Friday.

And he excelled in this year's SAT Challenge - an opportunity for eighth-grade students to take a form of the Scholastic Assessment Test to try their skill on a battery of testing usually reserved for college-bound high school juniors and seniors.

Matulevich earned 710 out of a possible 800 on the math portion and 650 out of 800 in verbal skills. His math performance earned him a $200 scholarship, good for further education or an enrichment experience of his choosing.

Nerves, he said, were "not too much" of a factor in the testing conducted at Flathead Valley Community College.

This school year, he is working one-on-one with Principal Boyle to learn Math II, a high school course of study. Once in high school, he expects to take some advanced placement classes.

"Blaine is a good friend to his classmates," Boyle said. "He'll do what he has to do to make everything better for them."

He is gracious to the other students, and "a good all-around kid" with a prankster glint in his eye.

"During football season, he did a real good job of leading," Boyle said. As one of only two eighth-graders who played the full season, Matulevich took on the responsibility of mentoring a young team that included eight sixth-graders.

"He caught on fast," Boyle said. "He was a good leader."

Matulevich, 14, is the son of Myrna and Joe Matulevich of Kalispell.

AT KALISPELL JUNIOR HIGH, Katie Hoag, also in eighth grade, won a $200 state scholarship in the verbal portion of the SAT Challenge.

She performed well on both portions of the test, scoring 700 in verbal and 560 in math - both based on a potential 800 points.

"The SAT Challenge … is sort of a practice for when you take it in high school," Hoag said. "I did well on the verbal, so kids who did really well get to go to the AGATE conference in Billings."

Montana AGATE - Association of Gifted and Talented Education - members will honor 111 seventh- and eighth-graders during an awards ceremony and reception at their annual spring conference on April 8.

Each of the students will receive a T-shirt and certificate for his or her top performance on the SAT Reasoning I Test. The two high scorers each in verbal, math and composite categories win the $200 scholarships.

Another Kalispell student, Hunter Lapp, has been invited to the awards ceremony for his high score in the SAT Challenge, too.

Hoag is looking forward to the new opportunities her scholarship will offer. It likely will go for a summer camp or a Glacier Institute course this summer.

"My brother and I have been going to the Carroll College Gifted and Talented Institutes for a couple years," she said.

But Glacier Institute courses are tempting, too.

"It would be fun to do rafting or fly-fishing," she said.

"I've always enjoyed English class and writing," she said, "but my favorite subject in school is science. I like life science, especially medical."

Her grandmother is a retired physician, her cousin is looking into studying medicine, and Hoag thinks it sounds promising, as well.

"I'm really interested in doing research to study the brain," she said.

Hoag enjoys reading, beading and other crafts, hiking and being outdoors. In school, she studies advanced English, math, social studies, drama and speech, plays clarinet in the band and is on the yearbook staff.

"It's really cool," she said, "because when I signed up to take the SAT Challenge, I didn't even know they were giving out awards. So it was a big surprise."

Hoag, 14, is the daughter of Jonna and Davy Hoag of Kalispell.

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com