Branch student emerges winner in tortoise emergence contest Published March 13, 2012 By Gary Hatch 95th Air Base Wing Public Affairs EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- Sixth Grader Nora Vik didn't know a lot about desert tortoises when she entered a contest to estimate when a tortoise named Mojave Maxine would emerge from her burrow in Palm Desert, Calif. But thanks to a lucky guess, Nora and the 30 or so other students in her class will be able to get up close and personal with Maxine when the tortoise celeb and her handlers visit the Branch Elementary classroom on base later this spring. Nora earned that privilege for her class when she guessed Maxine - who lives at The Living Desert Zoo and Botanical Gardens in Palm Desert - would emerge from her burrow at 7 a.m. on Feb. 25. Maxine waited until 11:33 a.m. that day to step out. Nora made her prediction online from the school's computer lab, where the class first talked a little about the desert tortoise, which is federally listed as a threatened species. "It's not part of our curriculum this year, but we discussed that it's threatened, what its enemies are and how rare it is," said Kim Cantrell, Nora's teacher. Then during free time in the lab, many class members entered the contest. "We learned a little [about the desert tortoise] but it was a lucky guess," Nora said with a broad smile. Maxine's visit is just the beginning of the class's good luck. Class members will each receive Mojave Maxine T-shirts and Cantrell will receive a $100 gift certificate, which she'll use to purchase much-needed educational materials for the students. In addition, Nora receives a $50 gift certificate and a Federal Lands Pass, which her family can use for free entrance to national parks and national wildlife refuges. It also covers standard amenity fees at national forests and grasslands. There are more than 2,000 federal recreation sites across the United States and many of those are in the West. "It couldn't have happened to a more perfect student," Cantrell said, in part referring to the fact that Nora's family is Norwegian. She grew up and went to school in Norway until about a year and a-half ago when her family moved to Edwards because her father - Terje Vik, a captain in the Norwegian Air Force - came here to work as a crew chief with the F-35 International Test Force. As for the gift certificates, Cantrell said she plans to use her $100 to update her library of biographies - something her class desperately needs - for a major project her students will undertake later in the year. Nora hopes to use her gift certificate toward the purchase of a Nook e-book reader. Maxine and her handlers will make the trek to Nora's class sometime in late April. The contest, officially called the Southern California Mojave Maxine Emergence Contest, is sponsored by The Living Desert and the Desert Managers Group, a group of federal and state agencies across the Mojave Desert who cooperate to better use resources and better manage the public lands in the desert. Edwards is a member of the DMG. The contest is open to Southern California students in kindergarten through 12th Grade from the following counties: Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Ventura. It is designed to increase awareness about the desert tortoise among students and their parents. A winner is selected for each county. The contest website is: http://www.mojavedata.gov/deserttortoise_gov/max/CaliforniaEntry.html.