THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 30, 1996 TAG: 9601300339
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
Robert F. Thorndike settled into the high-backed leather chair and politely grilled the three fifth-grade girls sitting nervously around the conference table at the Wheat First Butcher Singer investment offices.
The trio from Central Elementary School in Currituck County had shown a profit of more than $79,000 in 10 weeks playing a stock market game. It is believed to be the most made by any Eastern regional team since the games began here about eight years ago for high school, middle school and elementary school students.
``How did you do it?'' Thorndike asked, echoing others who wondered how the Currituck elementary team outscored everyone in the area that included northeast North Carolina and all of Virginia.
``It was an accident,'' 10-year-old Penny Byrd said for the umpteenth time. ``We were highlighting what we were going to do, and the ink just went through the paper.''
``We had picked something else and the ink bled through it . . . so we decided to keep it,'' explained teammate Becky Workman, 10.
The company chosen by happenstance was called Chesapeake Energy Corp., and the girls decided to buy as many shares as possible with their $200,000.
The girls had been told that it's good to invest in companies you know, and Chesapeake - the city to the north to children in rural Currituck - was a familiar name.
``It's, like, close and it's pretty big,'' Lakesha Dance, 11, said during a Monday morning ride to downtown Norfolk in a 29-foot-long, new white limousine.
Chesapeake Energy is an oil and gas exploration company out of Oklahoma City whose stock jumped from $19 to $40 a share by Dec. 9, when the 10-week game ended. An exceptionally cold fall that put a high demand on gas and oil can be thanked for the girls' good fortune.
``All of you need to know that in our industry, your type of performance is unmatched,'' Thorndike, a vice president and investment officer, told the group.
The folks at Chesapeake Energy were equally impressed - and pleased.
``They had the patience to hang in and not sell the stock, and ended up reaping the benefits. I think there are a lot of morals that can be drawn from that particular story,'' Tom Price, the company's vice president for corporate development, said in an interview.
As part of the winners' package, Wheat First gave the team a total of $500 in real certificates to split three ways and individually invest.
Another perk included a banquet at the World Trade Center's Town Point Club, where T-shirts, trophies, savings bonds and more kudos were doled out.
Monday's royal treatment was extended to the top five regional winners who outperformed most of the other 426 school teams across northeastern North Carolina andsoutheastern Virginia involved in last fall's contest. Several other regions of Virginia were involved, and game officials said the Currituck County school at Maple outdid them all.
Other regional winners included teams from Ruffner Middle School in Norfolk, which earned $53,000 in hypothetical money by investing in a company that makes a Freon substitute, and Plaza Middle School in Virginia Beach, which took in $44,973 by investing in a couple of places, including Playboy.
Two teams from Forest Glen Middle School in Suffolk rounded out the top five places. Both invested in an on-line service and cable network, among other companies.
The program is sponsored by Wheat First, The Virginian-Pilot, The Virginia Council on Economic Education in Richmond and the Center for Economic Education at Old Dominion University.
Other fifth-grade teams have come in first before, but the Central team is believed to be only chart-toppers from North Carolina, said Ann Powderly, the newspaper's educational services coordinator.
Each participating team of three to five players is given a newspaper subscription and $100,000 in hypothetical money to invest. Another $100,000 can be borrowed with interest.
Students learn about the stock market and how companies' price shares are affected by news events and political and social climates.
Students may invest in as many companies as they can afford and change stocks as they see fit.
For the Central Elementary winners, loyalty and patience paid off.
Chesapeake Energy's stock landed them near the cellar for a while. Then, about week 7, the stock started going through the roof.
``I think that's one of the neat things about the game,'' said Central's principal, M.R. ``Buck'' Green. ``It helps students learn about investing and taking calculated risks.
``Fortunately for these three girls, they came out on top. They got to take the risk and reap the rewards.''
Everyone in Dawn Vaughan's fifth-grade class, as well as classrooms across the Albemarle and Roanoke-Chowan regions of North Carolina, took part in The Stock Market Game.
``I thought it would be exciting for the kids. They could get involved in a real life experience,'' Vaughan said of her first year with the program, which has steadily grown in popularity.
``It also teaches the basic economic experiences that they can apply later on in life,'' she said.
``It also points out,'' as Price said, ``that you don't have to be a Nobel Prize winner to be able to invest successfully.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
Photo courtesy Diane Knox, Currituck County Schools
Monopoly's gotta be boring for Penny Byrd, second left, Becky
Workman, Lakesha Dance and their teacher, Dawn Vaughan, far left,
after they made a killing in a regional stock market game.
by CNB