California’s National Geographic Bee
Overview of Project For the 28th year, hundreds of top students across California have competed in the State Geographic Bee. This year, for the third year in the row, the California State Geographic Bee was held at Fresno State. On April 1, 2016 more than 100 students gathered to the Satellite Student Union on campus to compete for a chance to represent California at the National Geographic Bee in Washington D.C. The prize these students are vying for is $50,000 in college scholarships, an all exclusive trip for the winner and their family to the Galapagos Island, a lifetime subscription of National Geographic magazine and of course the title of the National Geographic Bee champion. At this years State Geographic Bee the stakes were raised significantly. After the opening statements made by state coordinator Sean Boyd, President Castro announced that he will offer a $10,000 scholarship to the state winner if they choose to enroll at Fresno State. Another improvement was that there was a significant increase in prize money. The winner received $1,000, second place received $750, and third place received $500.
WHO: 105 students, ages 10-14, representing California.
WHEN / WHERE: California State University, Fresno – Fresno State – Satellite Student Union Link to interactive Fresno State Campus Map: http://www.fresnostate.edu/map/
Here is our schedule, at a glance: 8:00 AM Registration Begins Satellite Student Union (SSU) 8:30 AM Opening Ceremony SSU 9:00 AM Preliminary Round (5 groups of ≈ 20) Selected Rooms near SSU, to be announced 11:00 AM Tie-Breaker Round (if needed) SSU 11:30 AM Final and Championship Rounds SSU 12:30 PM First, Second, and Third Place Winners Congratulated
Strategies & Tactics Contacting Media Prior to Event: Leading up to the event, we were presented with the task of contacting all of the newspapers in the qualified students cities sending editors and/or education reporters our email pitch and media advisories that were provided to us by the National Geographic Society. I first drafted the email pitch to be edited by the group then lastly Professor Hays. During this
time, I created a newspaper contact database that contained contacts of either editors or education reporters. Having the proper contacts I organized all of the duplicate contacts so that the three of us will not send duplicate emails. I created a separate database which detailed the groups assigned contacts along the names of the qualified students, their grade and the school they attend. If one area had multiple qualified students I created a custom table with the same information; grade, school, name. After finalizing all errors in the email pitch I shared with both Tavia and Abigail providing them with directions and the email pitch script to use when emailing their assigned contacts.
Social Media: At our first meeting with Sean at the beginning of the semester, the group evaluated that there was a need for an increase in social media. The presence in social media in the preceding years were close to non existent. With our groups knowledge in social media we felt it necessary for us to improve this. Tavia did the social media content that was sent to University Communications’ Jenny Toste, Tom Uribe and the Assistant at the Department of Geography at Fresno State Mai. The content she created was evergreen and those that received the content were able to copy and paste into their social media posts. The social media content was created to be used on all social media platforms, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Leading up to the event, we saw the opportunity to increase awareness throughout both the Department of Geography as well as the overall campus by creating a promo video for the California National Geographic Bee. Using an iMovie trailer template, I was able to create the promo video with photos of past events and photos of Fresno State.
Day Before Event Duties: The Thursday night before the Geographic Bee, Abigail and I went to the meeting Sean held at the Science I building to help with set up and assemble the competitors gift bags which included Halos oranges, pistachios, almonds, and their certificates for making it this far in the competition. We went over the itinerary for the next day of the event as well as assembled promotional materials that included a backdrop for a photo booth, custom grass signs, and other branding materials sent by National Geographic. The day before I created a checklist of materials needed for proper set up for the following day as well as any possible questions my group had regarding the event. The checklist included printing media guidelines to hand out to the attending media and media signs for the table which were provided by Tom Uribe. Finally, I informed my group of the time we should be at the Satellite Student Union to set up.
Day of Event Duties: Abigail and I met at the Satellite Student Union at 7 a.m. to set up the media tables. We all met in a classroom in the Science 1 building where all the materials were stored. We set up the grass signs and brought out the photo booth where students and their parents were to take pictures with the National Geographic cut outs. We then put up the media table and set up right next to the registration tables just outside the Satellite Student Union. Erica arrived around 8 a.m. At this time no media was present due to it just being the preliminary rounds. Just before 10 a.m. Tom Uribe arrived in a golf cart with signs marked “Reserved for Media” to put up in the media area in the Satellite Student Union. Around 12 p.m. Valley PBS arrived
requesting media guidelines and asked to have an interview with the state coordinator Sean. Soon to follow was The Fresno Bee and ABC 30. Sean seemed like he was running everywhere during the preliminary rounds between classes in the Science building and the Peters building. The three media outlets waited approximately 15-20 minutes for Sean. He gave interviews to all of the attending media in front of the backdrop after his statements before the tie breaking round began. At this time KMPH arrived, where they then requested an interview with Sean. When the final round began all media went to the designated area in the middle of the SSU. The final round lasted longer than expected due to the students not missing a question. Narrowing the top ten finalists to top two took almost an hour. KMPH, The Fresno Bee, and ABC 30 all got the footage they needed from the bee and left. Valley PBS was running a longer story highlighting the whole Geographic Bee the next week so they were able to stay for the finale in which they were able to interview the winner of the Geographic Bee as well as his family. When the bee was over, Tom Uribe and Shallin worked on the press release after the bee all the while me, Abigail, and Erica cleaned up the media table and brought back the chairs into the SSU. Afterwards, Central Valley Today set up an interview after the bee in which Sean appeared instead of the winner since they by that time left home.
Amanda Ballesteros , Abby Escobar, Tavia O’Neil MCJ 190: PR Agency Practicum Spring 2016