For release: April 13, 2005

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Marquette High Earns First Place in District Fed Challenge; Little Rock's Central High Earns Second

St. Louis, MO. — A team of students from Marquette High School in Chesterfield, Mo., triumphed over students from Little Rock, Louisville and Memphis to win the Federal Reserve's District "Fed Challenge," an economics competition sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The Marquette students will go on to represent the Federal Reserve's Eighth District at the Federal Reserve System’s national competition April 14-16 in Washington, D.C.

The students from Marquette are Paul Boswell, Melanie Subramanian, Charles Wu, Chris Wedell and David Kim (alternate). Their teacher is Eva Johnston and their coach is Paul Christopher, a global macro strategist with Eclipse Capital Management.

The students from Central High School in Little Rock are Spencer Berry, Rafi Kazi, Peter Liu, Steven McKee, Faye Zhoa and Lawrence Watts (alternate). Their teacher is George West and their coach is Dr. Eric Elders, a professor of economics at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Each team made a 15-minute presentation based on research of economic conditions and then recommended a course of action for monetary policy. These presentations were made before a panel of judges in a mock Federal Open Market Committee format. The teams then answered questions based on their presentations and research.

The judges for the competition were William Poole, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; Don Koch, owner of Koch Asset Management and former research director of the Atlanta Fed; and Ken Matheny, a senior economist with Macroeconomic Advisors.


With branches in Little Rock, Louisville and Memphis, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis serves the Eighth Federal Reserve District, which includes all of Arkansas, eastern Missouri, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, western Kentucky, western Tennessee and northern Mississippi. The St. Louis Fed is one of 12 regional Reserve Banks that, along with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., comprise the Federal Reserve System. As the nation's central bank, the Federal Reserve System formulates U.S. monetary policy, regulates state-chartered member banks and bank holding companies, and provides payment services to financial institutions and the U.S. government.

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