Marquette High School Team Captures Second Place in District ''''Fed Challenge

ST. LOUIS — A team of students from Marquette High School in Chesterfield, Mo., captured second place in the Federal Reserve's Eighth District "Fed Challenge," an economics competition sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The students who represented Marquette are Jereme Kramer, Jennifer Storozum, Charity Garner, Ryan McGee, Sneha Bagavandoss and Alex Reinisch (alternate). The team's teacher is Eva Johnston and their coach is Paul Christopher, a global macro strategist with Eclipse Capital Management.

First place went to Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.

Each team in the Fed Challenge makes a 15-minute presentation, based on their research, before a panel of judges at a mock meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, the Federal Reserve's policymaking body. Team members also have to answer the judges' questions about their research and the Federal Reserve.

The judges for the St. Louis competition were Robert Rasche, senior vice president and director of research for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; Bryan Bezold, forecasting and load research specialist with Ameren Energy Generating Company in St. Louis; and Rik Hafer, director of the office of economic education and business research at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

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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