If someone provided you with a description of the Mayan numeric system, then asked you to solve a basic Mayan mathematics problem and translate the answer into the western Arabic numeric system, how would you do?
That challenge was one of 25 math problems presented to 84 high students from eight western New York school districts who visited the Alfred University campus Friday, Nov. 6 for the 2026 William Varick Nevins III High School Mathematics Competition.
The 75-minute test was inaugurated to inspire and promote excellence in mathematics. Winners receive cash awards, and the top winner is offered scholarship support if they decide, after careful calculations, to attend Alfred University.
Twenty-five multiple-choice questions, based on the first three years of the high school mathematics curriculum original thinking, stress original creative problem solving, such as figuring out the logic underlying the Mayan numeric system. Calculators are not allowed.
Of the eight school districts represented in this year’s Nevins competition, the Canisteo-Greenwood Central School District finished in first place, winning team honors.
Additional school districts sending students to Alfred included: Addison, Alfred-Almond; Fillmore; Honeoye, Hornell, Scio, and Wheatland-Chili.
And the winners:
Sophomore level competition:
Josh Klehamer, Honeoye, third place; Johanna Sharp, Honeoye, second place (T); Desmond Chase, second place (T); Richard Andrus, Hornell, first place
Junior-Senior level competition
Madeleine Rowley, Wheaton-Chili, third place (T); Shane Drexler, Wheatland-Chili, third place (T); Abraham Lewis, Canisteo, second place (T); Jackson Bennett, Fillmore, second place (T); Nick Schoenthal, Wheatland-Chili, first place.
Schoenthal, the first-place winner in the junior-senior division, said he found the test “difficult…There was a lot to it.” He didn’t mind the challenge, though. “I find math fun,” he said after awards were distributed. “Especially when I know what I’m doing.”
Other students, requesting anonymity, said they found parts of the test a bit beyond their reach, especially that question about the Mayan numeric system.
The mathematician whose name memorializes the annual math challenge, William Varick Nevins III, graduated from Alfred University in 1932 and received his master’s degree in math in 1937. He joined the University’s math faculty and taught until his death in 1967. By popular accounts still circulating around the university, he, like Richard Andrus, also found math fun and just about always knew what he was doing.
