For release: March 13, 2003

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Marquette Wins First Place in St. Louis Area "Fed Challenge"; SLU High Earns Second Place

ST. LOUIS, Mo. ¾ A team of five students from Marquette High School in Chesterfield, Mo., beat out teams from five other area high schools to win the St. Louis area "Fed Challenge," an economics competition sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. A team from St. Louis University High captured second place.

The students from Marquette are Silpa Kaza, Allison Hartman, Melissa Subramanian, Meghan Jones, Charles Wu, and alternate Lesley Boswell. Their teacher is Eva Johnston and their coach is Paul Christopher, a global macro strategist with Eclipse Capital Management.

On April 2, the Marquette team will compete in the Eighth Federal Reserve District competition against the winning teams from the St. Louis Fed's branches in Little Rock, Louisville and Memphis. The District winner will then represent the Eighth District at the Federal Reserve System's national competition April 26-28 in Washington, D.C.

The students from SLU High are Howie Place, Mark Murphy, Drew Goodwin, Dan McDougell and Dave Zychinski. Their teacher is Peggy Pride.

Each team made a 15-minute presentation, based on their research of economic conditions and reflecting their recommended 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 Sarapage McCorkle, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis; Mary Anne Pettit, associate director of the Office of Economic Education at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville; Gaetano Antinolfi, assistant professor of economics at Washington University; Bob Sorensen, chairman of the department of economics at the University of Missouri-St.Louis; and James B. Bullard and David C. Wheelock, both assistant vice presidents in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Other area schools that fielded teams for the competition were Parkway Central, St. Louis Charter, East Alton, Ill., and Teutopolis, Ill.

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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