National Geographic Whiz Kid Alex Conrad Knows His Place

Some kids struggle to find their way, but Alex Conrad, an eighth grader at Valley View Middle School, knows exactly where he is all the time. That’s because Alex has a mind for maps and geography. That skill helped him last spring when the Edina native won the 2013 Minnesota Geographic Bee on April 4 by correctly answering questions like this: “What Canadian province has a town called ‘Niagara-on-the-lake, which played a large role in the war of 1812?” By answering “Ontario”,  Alex ultimately bested 100 other competitors and won a trip to the National Geographic Bee in Washington, D.C. in May, which was hosted by television personality Alex Trebek.“I started studying geography when I was really young, and got my first atlas when I was 2 years old,” says Alex. “It’s something I like to do, and you have to like it to be good at it.”Although Alex was the first student from Edina to make it to the national geography bee, he didn’t finish in the top 10 (which would have netted him a college scholarship and a trip to the Galapagos Islands) but, while in our nation’s capital, he and other students visited the Library of Congress and had the chance to see George Washington’s hand-drawn map of Mount Vernon.