Globe Trotters

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Byline: Sara Hooker shooker@dailyherald.com

Jakob Myers and the Illinois Geography Bee have been on a collision course since he ripped the wrapping paper off his third birthday present: a globe.

That globe inspired the sixth-grader at Lisle's Kennedy Junior High to study places near and far -- knowledge he recently used to become the school's reigning Geography Bee champion.

Myers will test his geography IQ again today, April 1, when he joins 98 other contestants from throughout Illinois at the state's Geography Bee at College of DuPage.

"I've always loved learning about all of the places in the world and thinking about what it would be like to live or travel there," Myers said.

Organized by the National Geographic Society, the bee includes students in fourth through eighth grade competing against each other by answering …