Governor announces math winners

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. awarded several young people for their math-testing expertise.

Hiram Golze, a senior at Skyline High School, Granite School District, received the highest score in the state in the American Math Competition, senior level. He got a score of 130.5 out of 150 on the exam.

Robert Yang, a sophomore at The Waterford School in Sandy, earned a perfect 150 in the competition on the sophomore-level exam.

Golze and Yang performed well enough on the next-higher-level exam, the American Invitational Math Exam, to be invited to take the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad exam. This test is used to choose six students who will represent the United States on the Olympiad team and compete internationally.

Golze is also the math winner of the Deseret News' Sterling Scholar program this year.

In addition to these two students, Jane Wu, a seventh-grader who is in a middle-school magnet program at West High School in Salt Lake City, scored a perfect 25 in the Competition, middle school level. Wu is one of approximately 150 perfect scores on this exam nationally.

"We all strongly believe the future of the country depends on having bright kids who can compete in math — specifically technology, engineering, computing and science," said Brigham Young University math professor David Wright.

The governor recognized 37 middle school and high school students for their high performance in the competition and for qualifying to take the higher-level exam.

Huntsman, during the ceremony in the Capitol's Gold Room, reminded the audience he had declared 2009 the Year of the Mathematics.

"Math literacy is important," he said. "We must encourage student participation in mathematics, and I encourage all students to take math every year during the high school experience."

E-mail: astewart@desnews.com