Contest organizers commented how "debutant Southwestern Community College made a splash in the tournament” as SCC math students Kyle Lassiter, left, and Rivers Woodward scored high at the 13th annual Gainesville State College Math Contest in Gainesville, Ga., on April 14. In the morning component, designed for calculus II students, Woodward placed ninth and Kyle seventeenth out of nearly 100 students from 10 colleges across the southeast. “This is a tremendous accomplishment for them considering that Rivers has not completed calculus II and Kyle is still in calculus I,” said Rudy Beharrysingh, SCC math instructor who was their sponsor. The president of Gainesville College, Martha T. Nesbitt, reiterated the need for advanced math and science skills in the United States. "If you are good at math and science, the world becomes your oyster with a pearl inside,” she said. In the afternoon component, as a team of only two, (all other teams had three or four students) Woodward and Lassiter managed to tie for fourth place out of 26 teams. “I am really pleased with their performance and how well they represented SCC. They should feel proud of themselves – they have worked hard and put SCC math on the map. I think this is the beginning of a resurgence of math and science at SCC,” said Beharrysingh.

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