Above, Eugene Civics Bee winner Juniper Ward with OBI President and CEO Angela Wilhelms and emcee Chris Hemmings, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Summit Bank.
April 18, 2025
Five middle-schoolers advanced yesterday to the second annual Oregon Civics Bee from the Eugene Civics Bee, one of two preliminary competitions. They will join the top five finishers in the Tigard Civics Bee, which took place March 8.
Juniper Ward, from Corvallis, won the Eugene bee, which was held at the University of Oregon’s Ford Alumni Center. Naina Bhanoo, from Corvallis, finished second, and Grace Kim, from Eugene, finished third. Also advancing to the Oregon Civics Bee are Lane Collier, from Baker City, and Mary Jane Hill, from Harrisburg.
Joining these students will be the top five finishers from the Tigard bee, Athanasia Gatziolis, Lexi Milla and Emeryn Tibbs, all from Portland, Avery Neice, from Lake Oswego, and Yervant Wei, from West Linn.
In all, 36 students from across the state participated in the two regional bees, having qualified from a pool of students statewide that submitted essays in an initial round.
The Oregon Civics Bee will be held later this spring at Willamette University in Salem. Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read will moderate, as he did in 2024 at the inaugural Oregon Civics Bee, won by Thomas Morgan of Keizer.
The 2025 Oregon Civics Bee is organized by Oregon Business and Industry in partnership with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. Beginning in late 2024, 6th, 7th and 8th graders from across the state entered the competition by submitting essays explaining how they would use civics principles to address problems they identified in their communities. The writers of the best essays, as determined by a panel of judges, were invited to participate in the two regional bees.
Go here to learn more about the Oregon Civics Bee.