“We like M&Ms."

Troi Pitt has her name in lights---really. The 15-year old math whiz’s name is literally in lights at the corner of Easton Ave. and E. Elizabeth Ave. where Liberty High School’s digital message machine trumpets successes and important events to passersby. Pitt recently won a Bronze Medal in Houston, TX when she placed in the ACT-SO math competition sponsored by the NAACP. The LHS sophomore was one of four girls that the Bethlehem Chapter of the NAACP sent to the national competition. According to her mother, Pitt maintains a 3.9 GPA and is an honor student. She credits Northeast Middle School math teacher Linda Shive and LHS 9th grade honors algebra teacher Marietta Zweifel as being inspirational teachers in her daughter’s academic success. ACT-SO is the Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics, according to www.actso.org. It is a youth program sponsored by the NAACP encouraging academic and cultural achievement among underserved minority high school students. Community volunteers and business leaders serve as mentors and coaches in promoting academic and artistic excellence among African-American and Hispanic students, according to the website. In an interview, Pitt said her love of M&Ms lead to the winner math project where she demonstrated the probability of finding brown M&Ms in any given package of the popular candy. She said there are six colors of M&Ms and that her project demonstrated that statistically there will be 10 brown ones in a batch of 100. The other colors are red, blue, green, yellow and orange, according to an internet search. Pitt plans to be a pharmacist and wants to attend the University of Maryland after high school. She is the daughter of Jennifer Harris of Bethlehem and Christopher Pitt of VA. She said her mother suggested the idea and she worked out the math that impressed local then national judges with her mastery of statistics. Pitt said she and her mom ate the M&Ms after the project was completed—that would be two 12-ounce bags. “We like M&Ms,” said Troi’s mom.