Students score high in math contest

Douglas High School students performed strongly in the 61st annual American Mathematics Contest, which was administered across the country on Feb. 9.

The school winner of the AMC 12 (for 11th and 12th-grade students) is junior Bart Niday, who was the winner of the AMC 10 in 2008.

The second- and third-place finishers this year are Justin Donat and Victoria Salas, respectively.

Donat won the AMC 12 last year, and he has also finished in the top 10 percent of the state for the Nevada State Prize Exam in Mathematics for the past three years.

The winner of the AMC 10 this year is Yuchen Jin.

"Congratulations to all 50 of the students who challenged themselves on this exam," said Douglas High math teacher Debbie Barnes.

The next level of competition was by invitation only. Niday was invited to compete in the American Invitational Mathematics Examination on March 16.

"This is an extremely rigorous, three-hour exam, and it is not multiple choice," Barnes said.

The school winner of the 2010 Nevada State Prize Exam in Mathematics is Nolan Nicholson, who won $40 for his efforts.

Douglas High had a record six students this year who finished in the top 10 percent of the state and received certificates of merit: Nicholson, Niday, Dylan Lane, Evan Kleiner, Donat and Jin.

Nicholson thanked his mother Dianne for "setting high expectations."

Kleiner thanked Barnes.

"She's a great teacher," he said.