During spring break, William Jacob (Jake) Hofgard, a seventh grader from Louisville Middle School, took top honors at the 2015 Colorado state-level Geographic Bee held at the University of Colorado Denver. One hundred competitors in grades four through eight qualified for the state competition after winning contests in their schools and placing among the top scorers in Colorado on a test administered by the National Geographic Society.

Hofgard will receive $100 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, DC, to represent Colorado in the national finals of the Bee at National Geographic Society headquarters, May 11-13, 2015. The National Geographic Bee is organized by the National Geographic Society, and the state contest was hosted by the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences at CU Denver.