TCC Jim Bolen Math Competitors Win More than $215,000 in Scholarships and Prizes

FORT WORTH, Texas (May 7, 2012)

Tarrant County College students who were winners in the annual Jim Bolen Math Competition received scholarships and prizes totaling more than $215,000 from area universities for a two-year period.

Awarding higher education institutions were Dallas Baptist University, Tarleton State University, Texas Christian University, Texas Wesleyan University, Texas Woman’s University and The University of Texas at Arlington. The Jim Bolen Math Competition Fund was established by former Fort Worth Mayor Bob Bolen and his wife, Fran. The fund is named for Bob Bolen’s late brother, Jim, who chaired the Northeast Campus Mathematics Department.

Northwest Campus student Phuc Ta received a full scholarship of $34,500 per year for two years to TCU. Northeast Campus student Blaise Brignac and Southeast Campus student An Vu, both received $8,500 per year Phi Theta Kappa scholarships to TCU.

Tarleton scholarship winners receiving a total of $29,000 were Southeast students Hong “Rose” Luong and Maryam Moradi, $10,000 each; and Northwest students Valerie Cafferata and Ryan Corricelli, and South Campus student Eion Donovan, $3,000 each.

Northwest student Kaylyn Smith was awarded an $8,000 scholarship to Texas Wesleyan University.

DBU awarded a $6,000 scholarship to Northwest student Syrian Crawford.

Winners of $1,500 scholarships to UTA were Varun Shukla, Northeast; Israel Fierro, Northwest; and Xin Liu, Ammar Mohammad, and Thinh Nguyen, Southeast.

Northwest student Jennifer Kennedy received a $1,000 scholarship from Texas Woman’s University.

TCC Foundation Scholarships were given to the five top-scoring first-year students toward second-year work at TCC. The top four winners were Northeast student John Bergman; Northwest students Alexander Baumann and Kristen Novotny; and Southeast student Justin Ehrhardt. Tying for fifth place were Northwest students Steve Burns, Kaylan Kocsis and Jake Parker, receiving $333 each.

Winning 10 top score awards were An Vu, Southeast, $1,000; Thinh Nguyen, Southeast, $750; Minh Le, Northeast, $500; John Bergman, Northeast, $400; Varun Shukia, Northeast, $350; Xin Liu, Southeast, $300; tying for seventh Israel Fierro, Northwest, and Ammar Mohammad, Southeast, $225 each; Troy Franklin, Northeast, $150; and tying for 10th  Kyle Adam, Southeast, and Jonathan Patterson, Northeast, $50 each.

Winners of $25 each for the competition on each TCC campus for fall and spring, respectively were:
Northeast: Yvan Yutong, John Bergman
Northwest: Israel Fierro, Phuc Ta
South: William Harrod, Eoin Donovan
Southeast: An Vu (both semesters)
Trinity River Campus: Tania Frias, Tung Dinh

The test is a national competition sponsored by the American Mathematics Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC). TCC ranked second in the state competition and second in the four-state Southwest Region, comprised of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona.

About 8,000 community college math students now compete in two rounds of comprehensive testing of college-level algebra, trigonometry, geometry and analytical geometry.

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