Last year Powell Middle School’s Mathcounts Coach Dale Estes traveled with Wyoming’s best students to Florida to compete at the national level. This year Powell Middle eighth grader Landon Petersen will show off his math skills in Washington, D.C., in May for the 2024 National Competition. 

Petersen placed fourth overall at the state competition on March 23 in Laramie, which was good enough to punch his ticket to the big leagues. And, for the second year in a row the Powell team took first place. Gianreye D’Alessandro placed sixth, Tyler Krueger seventh, Hunter Taylor 16th, Huston Dearcorn 28th, Jim Black 29th, Brady Kuenn 42nd and Tucker Muecke 58th.

Petersen has not gone to nationals or to the nation’s capital before, and right now he’s preparing by reviewing past tests and questions.

What does he think of his chances?

“I can get in the top 228 — I think that’s how many people are going,” Petersen said with a smile. 

Getting to the national level required placing well at a series of competitions, including at the local level. Once again, the Mathcounts team also performed well at their April 3 contest at Northwest College. Powell’s team has swept this competition for the past 17 years, Dearcorn said. 

As the school year comes to a close, the students eye their improvement and hope to beat a particularly tough competitor out of Laramie at next year’s state competition while also repeating their first place win.

“We definitely have to study more until next year, because there’s this one sixth grader that won, like 30 points or something and he just swept the whole competition,” Dearcorn said.