All of SeDoMoCha MS gets a slice of Pi
By Stuart Hedstrom
Staff Writer
DOVER-FOXCROFT — For the third year in a row, SeDoMoCha Middle School celebrated Pi Day with a session of afternoon activities related to the non-terminating ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. While Pi Day was marked worldwide on Saturday, March 15, SeDoMoCha had its celebration several days prior on March 11.
Observer photos/Stuart Hedstrom
HAVE SOME PI(E) — For the third year in a row, SeDoMoCha Middle School celebrated Pi Day with a session of activities in the gym — this year’s day was held March 11. The student in each grade who could recite the most digits of Pi earned the right to hit a math teacher of their choice with a pie, and all four winners opted for grade 8 teacher Ryan Nickerson. Above, Nickerson is hit with a pie from eighth-grader Spencer Ireland and, right, grade 7 winner Ben Atwater makes his mark. Ireland and Atwater both won their grade levels last year as well as in 2013 in the Pi recitation contest.
Leading up to the SeDoMoCha Middle School Pi Day, students could choose to bake their own entries in most creative, best tasting and overall appearance pie contest categories. On March 11, with grades 5-8 gathered in the gymnasium, students jump roped and hula hooped in competitions to see who could keep these movements going the longest. Representatives from each homeroom got to forget any and all table manners to see who could eat a pie plate containing cookies and whipped cream the fastest, without using their hands, in the pie eating contest.
“As most of you know this is an extremely special Pi Day,” grade 8 math teacher Ryan Nickerson told the audience in the gym prior to the start of the games. He explained this year’s date is March 14, 2015, representing 3.1415 …. with the next digits being represented during the 9 a.m.-hour. (9:26 a.m. and 53 seconds).
“So make sure you celebrate Saturday,” Nickerson said.
Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom
HE WON’T BE CLEAN FOR LONG — SeDoMoCha Middle School fifth-grader Miles Gadwah gets ready to throw a pie at grade 8 math teacher Ryan Nickerson during the Pi Day festivities on March 11. Gadwah earned the honor by reciting the greatest number of digits of Pi among the grade 5 students.
After four rounds of pie eating, grade 7 math teacher Nichole Martin said, “There were 14 pies in the competition.” She then had all of the pie baking winners stand for a round of applause from their peers.
The last of the afternoon’s activities had the winners in the Pi recitation come forward, with the top three in each grade being recognized. The first-place finishers all had the honor of throwing a pie at the face of either Nickerson or Martin.
With a total of 63 digits correctly spoken aloud, Miles Gadwah was the grade 5 winner. Gadwah selected Nickerson for his pie attack and the grade 8 math teacher ended up getting creamed as the rest of the student body cheered Gadwah on.
Kaylee Durgin’s 73 digits earned her top honors for grade 6, and as her reward she opted to have a just cleaned off Nickerson again be hit with a pie.
A year ago Ben Atwater won the grade six Pi recitation contest — he also received top honors as a fifth-grader — and in 2015 he earned the seventh-grade honors. Atwater led all students with 305 correct digits. Nickerson told the audience the SeDoMoCha record is 411 digits of Pi, so Atwater has another year to try to surpass this mark.
Atwater, possibly with the urging of many of the students sitting in the bleachers chanting “Nickerson! Nickerson”!, chose to follow his third consecutive victory by once again hitting Nickerson with his pie.
Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom
WHEN THE PIE HITS YOUR EYE — SeDoMoCha Middle School grade 8 math teacher Ryan Nickerson is plunked by sixth-grader Kaylee Durgin during the Pi Day festivities on March 11. Durgin won the Pi recitation contest for grade 6, correctly identifying 73 digits.
Grade 8 winner Spencer Ireland was another student with a three-peat of Pi recitation titles, earning the victory with 66 digits in 2015. Ireland opted to continue the trend with Nickerson being his choice of teacher to get hit with a pie.
Before the Pi Day events, Nickerson mentioned that Save-A-Lot, Shaw’s and Will’s Shop ‘n Save all donated items. “It was really nice, we didn’t have to pay for anything,” he said in thanking the three Dover-Foxcroft grocery stores.
Observer photos/Stuart Hedstrom
SOMEONE NEEDS A NAPKIN — Each grade level homeroom had a representative in the four rounds of the pie eating competition on March 11 as part of the SeDoMoCha Middle School Pi Day festivities. To the right, from top, are grade 5, grade 6 and grade 8.
