Competitive math tournaments not only hold a notable numeral in Sarah Cherry’s heart, its square root provided her a perfect square that’s both its origin and its equal: true love. Her first date with her husband, John, was planned while he worked a math competition. “I asked him if he wanted to go to a basketball game,” she remembers, “and he’s like, ‘nah, I don’t want to go to a basketball game, but we could do something else.’” His counteroffer? Dinner. “We enjoyed ourselves, and the rest is history.”

It’s only natural that romance is an outgrowth of Sarah’s fondness for mathematics. As the test writer for the Momence Math Invitational for fifteen years, she’s the sole chef in the kitchen cooking up the meat and bones of the contest’s questions. Whether serving up baked goods, jams, jellies, and salsas through her culinary business, Turtle Acres, or teaching career and technical education at the high school, Sarah has debunked an often-heard comment about the practical applications of math: “I’m never going to use this.” Not only does she validate the plight of math teachers everywhere, her life’s legacy thus far is steeped in spreading appreciation for the field of study she’s always loved.

Sarah began her math education career as early as high school while roaming the halls of MHS as a student. “I loved math. I was good at math, and bless the teachers, they didn’t always seem to get it across easily for some students,” she recalls. Seeing a real need among her peers, she used the class time her proficiency freed up to tutor fellow students. When she reached college age, it only seemed appropriate to pursue a career in engineering or architecture to put her mathematical prowess to the test. However, a fateful physics class at Olivet Nazarene University would alter her professional trajectory altogether. Sarah paused for reflection after performing below her expectations in an integral course. “I decided to look into other majors,” she says. “Education sounded good because I did know how to do math, and I enjoyed doing math, and I could teach others to do math.” A degree in education later and under the tutelage of Momence math matriarch Leigh Ann Sokoloff, she student-taught at the junior high until a full-time job opening cemented her place here.

Today, Sarah is best known for her crucial question composing role as test writer for the math team rumble. She combs through older tests to see what new avenues she can bring to the stages of the competition’s problems. Reviewing prior questions is essential as students often practice using question banks from past events. Sarah’s daunting task is to create virtually fresh content every year based on standard concepts familiar to sixth through eighth-grade students. When developing word problems, the job becomes a downright creative venture. “I always have to come up with new scenarios,” she explains. “For a perimeter problem, I can do a barnyard or somebody’s backyard or a pool. I look elsewhere for these types of inspirations.” Due to the variety of topics she researches to discover the perfect context for questions, ranging from flights across the country to barnyard animals, she jokes that her algorithm has littered her news feed with an eclectic variety of miscellanea.

“I think that math is as easy or as hard as you want it to be,” Sarah says. “You can do all of it in real life, don’t freak out when there’s numbers involved.” She finds the peak importance of Momence’s mathalon is in offering talented students a place to excel and “show off.” The feeling of not being alone in loving math, she says, is the key takeaway for our dedicated students. As someone who quietly argued the merits of math in a sea of classmates who could say nothing but, “I hate it,” she’s more than happy to continue dispelling that brand of negative programming. If a love like Sarah and her husband’s can blossom at a math competition, then it’s only fair to say that there’s most likely a highly potent advantage to knowing this mathematics mumbo jumbo after all.