LA GRANDE — Nearly 280 students from 15 high schools competed Tuesday, April 15, in the annual Eastern Oregon University Regional High School Mathematics Competition.

Students from Echo, Enterprise, La Grande, Cove, Imbler, Irrigon, Union, Riverside, Weston-McEwen, Ontario and Vale high schools, along with a home school team, took part in this year’s competition.

The competition included events in geometry, pre-algebra, algebra one, algebra two, pre-calculous and calculus. First place finishers in each of the categories win $1,000 scholarships to EOU if they choose to enroll at the university.

Students face off in both individual competitions, such as the math bee and a bidding style math game, before finishing the day with the team-based math relay, which sees high schoolers running across the gym to answer math questions before sprinting back to tag their teammates in for the next question.

In years past the regional competition fed into a statewide competition the Oregon Council of Teachers of Mathematic ran, according to Eastern’s website. Last year, however, there was no statewide competition. There are ongoing efforts to revive the state competition and EOU has decided to continue hosting the regional competition for the time being.