Those Were the Days (of Dashed Math Dreams)

Andrew Gelman posts some memories of fellow competitors in the Math Olympiad program. 

I was never on that level, but I did have contact with Prof. Nura Turner, who seems to have ramrodded the program in its early years.  In 1957-8 school year some of us Chenango Forks students took a math test, I think sponsored by some math society--maybe John Turna our math teacher pushed it. Anyhow, IIRC I got into the top ranks in the region--which may have been upstate NY, don't remember.  Anyhow I must have been one of these because Prof Turner included me in the people she tried to track.  

I write "tried" because I wasn't too cooperative.  IIRC my scores in my senior year were lower, an omen of what happened in college.  I was placed in the calculus course for math majors, not the one for math geniuses.  The teacher had a thick accent, I forget from where, and I never got into it. So after one term any interest in pursuing math was gone--government and American history were much more interesting.