Above: Andrew Alsworth, an eighth-grader at Martin County West, points to an area on the Mediterranean Sea that his class is studying. Alsworth has qualified to participate in the state geography bee next month.

TRIMONT — Eighth-grader Andrew Alsworth has been fascinated with maps since an early age. “I’ve been looking at maps for a long time, even when I was little,” he said. “In this filing cabinet my dad has, I’d take the maps of D.C. out and I’d look at them. Then I got an atlas, and now I spend a lot of time on Google Earth.” His interest has paid off. He has qualified to participate in the state geography bee in April. Alsworth, son of Tom and Roberta Alsworth of rural Sherburn, won the school geography bee when he went against the top 10 students in grades 4-8. School-level winners are then given a test that is submitted to the National Geographic Society. Alsworth’s score was in the top 100, qualifying him for state competition. To get ready for the competition, Alsworth has worked ahead on lessons for Asia and Africa. But as it turns out, there aren’t a lot of areas in the world Alsworth hasn’t already studied on his own.